


Smutlets

by Unchained_Daisychain



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Aftercare, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom!Paul, Camboy Paul, Canon Compliant, Daddy!Paul, Dry Humping, Facials, First Kiss, Fluff and Smut, Forbidden Love, Glasses kink, Light BDSM, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Paris holiday, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Requests are welcome, Rimming, Sex Tapes, Sex Toys, Smut, Spanking, Voyeurism, bottom!John, cuz that's a thing now, idk these are just ficlets but dirty, top!John, top!paul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:08:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unchained_Daisychain/pseuds/Unchained_Daisychain
Summary: A collection of mclennon smut because I am garbage
Relationships: John Lennon & Paul McCartney, John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 88
Kudos: 301
Collections: mclennon favorites





	1. Initiation

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have nearly as many of these ready as I do ficlets, but I wanted to separate these dirty ones from the sweet innocence of the others. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this first one and send me some more ideas! I'll be open to doing most "typical" kinks and even just some normal smut. it's mainly all for practice.

Initially, Paul thinks they’re all taking the piss. As the newest member of the band, he has learned to laugh off the jokes made at his expense. But a frown soon misshapes his smile as he dumbly watches the boys disperse themselves throughout the room.

“Yer serious?” he asks, confusion cementing his feet on the carpet. “All of you just…sit around an’ wank together?”

Eager and bright-faced, he had entered Nigel’s sitting room prepared for his first rehearsal with the new group, only for the shades to be drawn and instruments set aside. 

“Loosens up the wrists,” John answers from an armchair, already thumbing open his trousers.

“If you don’t wanna join, just wait outside till the big boys are finished,” Len says with grating arrogance.

It feels like some type of test or initiation.  _ Buy into our daft game and you’ll secure your spot in the band; bow out and consider yourself nothing more than an expendable instrument. _ Paul’s hand tightens around the neck of his guitar. Soon enough it disappears from his grasp entirely as he deposits it against the wall and seats himself in a vacant armchair. 

They hoot and whistle at his decision. 

“Mind yerself with the furniture, lads,” Nigel warns. “No stains.”

“But I always like to leave a little somethin’ for yer mum,” Pete quips, blonde eyebrows waggling.

“Fuck off.”

When their focus returns to their teenage libido, Paul steals furtive glances around the room. By now all of them have a dominant hand unabashedly shoved down their underwear. It seems they were serious after all. Without debating it much further, he follows suit.

They volley names back and forth, occasionally indulging in the fantasy with compliments to the women’s physical attributes. Admittedly, Paul slips beneath the undercurrent of pleasure. His ears selectively filter in the names but none of the background noise tailing them. Nothing that would remind him of what he’s taking part in.

Until John demands participation with, “Gi’ us a name, McCartney.”

His eyes peel open, outline the shape of John and his pumping fist. Nearly possessing the audacity to blush, he shuts them just as quickly and blurts the first name that comes to mind: “Marilyn Monroe.”

A few groans of approval furnish the air. When his own cock responds with a twitch of interest, he struggles to decide whether his body is betraying him or not. He’s never shared this part of himself with a group of other lads before.

In certain shadowy pockets of the room, he hears the quickening of breath. Pleasured sighs replace the names, concentration narrowed to finishing. Eventually, the pivotal moment for most of them arrives….

“Winston Churchill!”

For a terrifying moment Paul’s stomach sinks. His pumping fist freezes. Wide and paranoid, his eyes shoot open, looking for the smirks and pointing fingers. It  _ had _ been some daft set-up after all, hadn’t it?

“Ah, fuckin’ hell, John!” one of the lads complains; but Paul notices they haven’t stopped.

The band leader erupts with laughter, slouched in his armchair and fly hanging open like a mouth cackling along with him. If John finished already, Paul hadn’t heard. But he also seems like the type to delay his own pleasure for a chance to ruin someone else’s.

Quick and businesslike, Paul strokes himself to completion and snatches some tissues from the end table to clean himself up. The others do similarly, and he learns, shamefully and uncomfortably, John had been able to hold out the longest. 

The parted shades reintroduce the room to sunlight as they claim their abandoned instruments. He ignores the scarlet streaks on Pete Shotton’s pale cheeks—the sated gleam in John’s eyes. 

He just hopes he passed the test.

* * *

These odd masturbation sessions aren’t a prelude to every rehearsal, Paul comes to learn. Many times he arrives to idle strumming or conversation, and their bottled hormones seem to enrich the music on those days. But the repeated occurrences sometimes baffle him more than if it had all been for a lark.

Undoubtedly, teenage boredom knows no bounds.

This time they’re down a washboard player and banjoist. Somehow such an insignificant loss still manages to alter the intimacy of the gathering. Despite the ample room, they sit even more closely together—a secrecy seated amongst them in the empty chairs. 

Things progress much like the first time.

With some experience under his belt, Paul has grasped the procedure. His sensorial awareness is no longer as restrictive as the first time. He begins to notice more….

A catch of breath tempts Paul’s eyes into looking. A short distance away, the tops of John’s pale thighs are spilling from his black leather trousers. His fist works like a piston in fluid motions, mastering his own body with precise twists and squeezes. Lips parted, he practically melts into his chair.

As though sensing his gaze, John’s eyes flutter open. Like the sound holes of an acoustic, they stare at him across the room. Distantly, Paul is aware of the other lads carrying on, reaching for an end that has seemed to be stalled for him and John. 

Knowing he should look away in repulsion, he unflinchingly watches his best mate come. Pearlescent strings spurt from his tip, hips undulating like he never wants it to end. All the while, his eyes never break away. It’s the first time Paul has ever seen another bloke climax. And he isn’t far behind. 

Walking home from practice that evening, John asks him what he thinks of their raunchy sessions.

Paul wisely withholds sharing that they have changed the way he gets himself off at home now. When he can’t get his hands on a magazine, names stream through his head from an endless queue. 

With a shrug he answers, “Wasn’t sure about it at first, but I’ve kinda got used to it now.”

“Nice warm-up, eh?”

“Sure,” he chuckles. “You always do the Churchill bit?”

John smirks. “Sometimes it’s Neville Chamberlain. Anything to fuck with ‘em, really.”

He bumps Paul’s shoulder playfully as they stride on.

They never mention the moment of eye contact.

* * *

His hand rests on the couch cushion, on the slow curl to a fist with every new name shouted out. 

This time he can actually hear John—the fleshy slide of his hand and every gossamer breath. In small doses, with one singular sense at a time, Paul is learning how he tosses himself off. Seeing it, then hearing it, and letting his filthy imagination fill the gaps.

Their wrists brush. Neither of them jerk away.

The snag of arm hair feels like an electric jolt. An ice pick on sleeping skin. He had already been on edge the moment John claimed the seat beside him, and now his entire body is on the verge of snapping. Names both famous and local continue to fly from lips and over Paul’s head. His mind only narrows to the bony knot of John’s wrist resting against his own and finds it to be more effective than the Hollywood stars.

Next to him, he hears his friend speed up. So close—dragging Paul along with every sound, loud and slick. Then John’s fingers are tangling messily with his own on the cushion, squeezing as he orgasms. Unthinkingly, Paul grips back just as tight and imagines that strength around his cock. Bottom lip wedged between his teeth, he comes hotly.

Their panting breaths are thunderous to his ears. John’s fingers gently slide away like a phantom touch. He leaves Paul on the settee, tingling bodily. 

The rest of the night, he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from John’s hands.

* * *

A few days later he cycles to Mendips to throw around some lyrics with John. Their last interaction has made a home of his thoughts, but Paul knows better than to bring it up. Anything can happen in the throes of ecstasy, and good mates always lend each other a hand. Now it’s business as usual.

Opening his friend’s bedroom door, however, he isn’t greeted by the usual sight of John with a guitar in his lap. 

“Fuckin’ ‘ell, sorry—”

“Jesus, Paul, can’t you knock?” John barks, bolting up in bed. The blankets scarcely cover his modesty, not quick enough to hide how he had been biding his time. 

“I thought you knew I was comin’,” Paul says, trying to settle his eyes on anything other than John’s tousled hair or flushed cheeks.

He snorts. “I could say the same.”

“I’ll just—”

“No, I’m almost there,” he says with a quiet laugh, as though surprised by his own audacity, before Paul can close the door. “Join in if you’d like.”

Slowly he begins to stroke himself again, eyes slipping shut. The light pooling in from the window leaves nothing to the imagination. Paul wonders just how close he is if, in his delirium, he can carry on unfazed. 

“Usually only do that with the other lads, though,” he points out.

There’s something more intimate about the two of them doing it alone. Something that doesn’t lend itself to easy excuses.

“Stand there and watch, then. But I’m not stoppin’ for you or anybody.”

His head lolls back again, a wispy sigh escaping his lips. Paul waits for a laugh to follow it—waits for the punchline. But the glistening head of his cock seems far from a joke.

Swallowing, he eyes the room. After taking a reluctant step forward, he quietly closes the door behind himself.

John makes space for him on the bed by readjusting himself to lean against the wall. In a bed so small, however, they still find themselves elbow-to-elbow. Forcing himself to approach it like every other session, Paul unzips his trousers and spits into his palm. 

They’ve always been mirrors of one another with guitars in hand. Until now, it never proved to be a problem—a ceaseless friction on the bare skin of their arms from the steady rhythm of their dominant hands. It kindles a fire within Paul’s gut.

Initially, the names are sparse and uttered with less enthusiasm than usual. He begins to think maybe John doesn’t want to make a game of it this time. Just toss off, clean themselves up, and get to the music. 

Things soon take a jolting shift, however, and Paul can hardly blame it on a loose tongue.

Quietly, almost as though to himself, John mutters, “Elvis.”

Words stick to Paul’s throat. He hesitates, still as fearful of John taking the piss as he had been on day one. A slip of the tongue, or wrist, could end in a chagrin impossible to live down.

But the eye contact, the entangled fingers—had it all been a perverse joke, too?

Quietly, he dares to offer, “Marlon Brando.”

John receives it with a breath snagged by approval. His rhythm speeds up, encouraging Paul’s along with it by the nudge of his elbow. “Fuck…Paul Newman.”

He falters. To hear his own name nearly spoken by John during such an intimate moment scatters every other thought. Only one name laps around the track of his mind:  _ John, John, John. _

Unthinkingly, he says it.

Eyes as dark as splotches of ink meet his own. With the shades always drawn tight on their naughty sessions, Paul has never seen them so desirous before. They flick down to where he has a hand around himself. 

Licking his lips, John asks, “Can I?”

He nods hastily. 

Abandoning his own red and leaking cock, John takes control for him. His hand is large and already slick from his own pre-come. Inexperience in his touch, he finds his grip around the sensitive flesh. Paul’s fingers claw at the sheets in anticipation, tongue heavy in his mouth at the sight of a masucline hand around his cock. As John establishes a pace, quick and firm, his head lolls against the wall.

“Fuck,” Paul whispers, a praise that solidifies the confidence of his strokes.

Eventually, he rallies enough agency to return the favor. An X now formed by their arms, he wraps his hand around John’s cock. His friend moans, legs splaying wider for ample room to work. The angle is awkward, but the sensation of hot, stiff flesh that isn’t his own is too exhilarating to stop. 

He’s seen and heard John; now he wants to feel him.

With a deep groan, Paul comes into his fist. His own grip tightens around John, strokes stuttering as his orgasm overtakes him. But, with a hand sticky and wet and folded around Paul’s as a guide, he steadies him on. Together, they pump his cock until John spills across their fingers—entangled in a way all too familiar.

Heavily, they slump against the wall. While they reel back in reality, John’s head tips onto Paul’s shoulder. Voice gravelly, he murmurs, “Winston Churchill.”

Paul chuckles into the top of his disheveled hair. “Piss off.”


	2. Initiation, Continued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After that day at John's house, Paul can't understand why John's mood has suddenly changed. But everything comes to a head the night Paul flubs his guitar solo during their New Clubmoor Hall gig.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was considering doing a second part to the first smutlet, and when someone gave me this idea, I knew I had to.

Paul had expected the tension between them to burst like a bubble. And for a few weeks, it had. The masturbation rituals stopped so abruptly that he began to wonder if John had finally got all he wanted from them. Began to wonder what the end goal had even been in the first place.

Rather than harping on what had transpired in his friend’s bedroom, Paul invests his time in polishing his solo. Not long after John’s hand had been around the base of his prick, it had stilled on the neck of his guitar as he had asked, out of nowhere, “You want the solo on ‘Guitar Boogie’?”

Stifling his excitement, Paul had accepted as nonchalantly as possible. 

The offer had felt like hush money in a way. Something to keep him in the band once his conscience  _ inevitably _ caught up to him. Whatever John’s reasoning, Paul is looking forward to a chance to finally prove himself.

* * *

As the days draw nearer to their gig at the New Clubmoor Hall, John’s mood undergoes an inexplicable shift. The lad is no stranger to carrying his spats with Mimi into their rehearsals. But Paul doesn’t sense that to be the issue this time. Usually the music can reshape the scowl on his face and return color to his angry red knuckles. 

That reliable remedy proves ineffectual to whatever chip resides on his shoulder now. 

Unsure of how to handle him, Paul keeps his distance. He can’t tell if that helps matters or not.

* * *

The crowds never seem as intimidating from the red veil safety of a curtain. Just a room full of insecure and randy teenagers—he can handle them.

A hand lands, solid and insistent, in the center of his back. Turning his head, Paul’s eyes lock with John’s for a brief second before he’s pushing him onstage. 

They’re up.

Like a thespian donning their stage makeup, John manages to drop the attitude for the performance. He brings to the table his usual charisma and goofiness that, in its own way, sets them apart from other groups. It reminds Paul of one of the reasons he chose John’s band over anyone else’s. They never take themselves too seriously.

While they slip in and out of numbers like pairs of shoes, Paul can only anticipate his upcoming solo. His fingers assemble the chords to every present song, but mentally they rehearse “Guitar Boogie” on an endless loop.

By the fifth song, his time comes.

Heart rising to its feet, he takes his preludial step forward. It begins smoothly, his schoolboy meticulousness translating to his music for once as the practice pays off. At the precipice of his confidence, his eyes find John and the small, dare he say  _ proud, _ smile propped in the corner of his mouth. 

His heart lurches. His rhythm chokes.

Against the fret, his fingertips feel the weight of everything riding on this moment. His first paycheck and his reputation amongst the others in the group. Somehow his performance nosedives from there as he struggles to reclaim mastery of his instrument. 

Bested by his hubris.

For the remainder of their set, he condemns himself to the dim sidelines of the stage. Perhaps none of the young dancers even heard his slip-up, but Paul had. The rest of the band had. That’s enough to make it matter more than if he had nailed it.

As soon as their set ends, he beelines for the back exit. He lights himself a smoke and curses his fingers for being able to manage that but not a simple solo. Three drags in, the door creaks open and the nighttime fog disperses around John as he approaches him.

“What the fuck happened in there?” he demands like a disgruntled headmaster.

“I don’t know,” Paul mutters. “Too much on me mind, I guess.”

“Well, get it sorted, yeah? It’s fuckin’ with our gigs.”

Paul frowns at his acidity. “I’m sorry, alright? It’s only a couple pounds’ pay anyway.”

“If that’s all it is to you, then don’t bother with it. We’ll find someone who gives a shit.”

“I do give a shit—I didn’t butcher it on purpose.” He shakes his head, confounded by John’s undue outrage; they’re hardly a group of professionals. “You’ve had a cob on all week. What’s the matter?”

“You tell me,” he counters, eyes colder than the October air. “Yer the one who’s been avoidin’ me like the bloody plague.”

All at once, realization rides in on a chilly breeze. His face drops; the cigarette burns between his fingers. 

“This isn’t just about me cockin’ up the solo, is it?”

John looks away, scuffing his boot against the variegated grey bricks. He doesn’t answer.

Paul gapes at him, unprepared for such a confrontation. 

So that was it. For days, his mood had been souring because Paul hadn’t initiated something more between them. John had never even given an indication that he  _ wanted _ something more, though. Paul had considered it a miracle that he wasn’t inexplicably rejected from the band in the following days.

But now, to know John had been thinking about it, too….

Thumping his fag to the ground, he quietly explains, “I thought you wanted space after…y’know.”

John shakes his head slowly as he steps closer. Leaves crinkle beneath his boot heels like Paul’s bated breath. “I don’t want space.”

His eyes flicker to Paul’s lips, the coldness smoked out by something darker. Against the wall by Paul’s head, his hand braces itself. Calluses meeting bricks, leather and smoke pervading his senses—everything titillatingly rough and boyish.

His eyes slip shut, savoring. On his parted lips, he tastes John’s nicotine breath as he leans in. Paul’s fists curl at his side, unsure of where to grab and settling on his own flesh. The brazenness shown with throbbing erections in hand has suddenly escaped them. Every inch between them feels more raw than flayed skin.

Noses brushing, their lips ghost over each other.

The back door squeals on its hinges and John withdraws from him like a gust of wind. Paul’s knees nearly buckle from the sudden vacancy of heat.

“There you are !” Pete shouts when he spots them in the darkness, the length of the Mersey now between them. “Better come get yer quid before Colin doubles his share.”

“Keep off it, ye greedy bastards,” John shouts back.

Not a trace of guilt makes itself known in his voice. The resilience amazes Paul, who has a lump in his throat so large it keeps him pinned to the wall. Speechless and thoughts lagged from the moisture of John’s breath.

“‘Ey, McCartney,” Shotton adds, “forget about that solo, yeah? ‘Appens to the best of us.”

“Ta,” he answers, but his eyes stare somewhere distantly ahead of him.

When their bandmate disappears back inside, John rummages a hand through his quiff. With a nod to the metal door, he says, “Better head back in ‘fore they take our half.”

Nodding silently, Paul follows him up the stairs. On the last step they come to a halt as John pauses with his hand on the handle. Paul wonders if he needs that same push he had offered  _ him _ before the show, until he turns and says, “Stay with me tonight.”

Paul swallows thickly. “Okay.”

* * *

With every mile closer to Mendips, his abdomen clenches in anticipation as though he can feel the tire tracks on his intestines. Typically instruments were wedged between them or they claimed individual seats. But now they couldn’t be any closer together, guitars rejected to the floor. 

In an effort to subdue his eagerness, Paul counts the street lamps zipping past the window like camera bulb flashes. He reflects on the precise moment he dropped the ball. The gentle curl of John’s lips flashes in his mind like a lunar crescent. His eyes had sought approval in John’s. 

That smile had ruined him.

Pulling him from his reverie, John’s hand creeps onto his thigh. Subtly, Paul glances down with only his eyes, watching the nimble fingers roam like a pale spider up the inseam of the black leather. He spreads his legs wider. 

Eyes fixed on the driver’s rectangular mirror up front, John’s expression gives nothing away. Somehow, he has perfected a mask of normalcy for these situations. His hand roams higher, cupping firmly around his soft package. For a glorious handful of seconds, he palms rhythmically.

Then the touch is gone. 

As John returns his devilish fingers to himself, Paul releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. 

_ Christ. _

By the time the bus jolts at their stop, he’s already half-hard in his trousers.

* * *

When they tossed each other off, Paul had entered John’s room that day with no expectations. Aware of the mutual desire between them now, he isn’t sure how to conduct himself. His skin feels two sizes too small. Even the room itself seems to welcome him differently.

While John quietly shuts the door behind them, Paul perches on the edge of the bed to toe his boots off. “Did you wanna—?”

Before the words can leave his mouth, John’s hands are cupping and lifting his face for a kiss. His spine arches in desperation as he bends over him. Paul’s noise of surprise is smothered between their lips. His hand reaches for John’s neck, fingers twisting in the curly locks above the nape. 

The barely-there kiss back at New Clubmoor now feels like an overture to a composition far more impassioned.

As the weight of John crowds more insistently over him, Paul scoots up the bed. Their lips scarcely part, jaws wide for the messy work of tongues. John settles on top of him against the mattress, between his accommodating legs. 

His own breath beating back against his face from John’s skin, he whispers, “I been achin’ like mad since you copped a feel on the bus.”

“Just wanted to let you know I was thinkin’ about ya,” John teases, hips grinding into Paul’s with the cadence of his words.

“I got the message,” Paul says with a chuckle intercepted by a moan. “Loud ‘n’ clear.”

He rucks John’s t-shirt, sweaty from an arduous night on stage, up his back. Tugging it the rest of the way off, he tosses it to the floor and assists Paul with his own. The contact of their slick, firm chests sends a shock of heat to his groin. His fingers chart the muscles of John’s back that tauten like thick, braided ropes beneath his skin.

“Why does it feel so good?” he whispers hotly in Paul’s ear.

Paul shakes his head, kissing him deeply. “I don’t know.”

And this time John is more than merely under his shoulder—he’s right in his ear with those keening sounds on damp lips. As he rocks more vigorously against him, his hand grips Paul’s thigh, drawing a bent knee around the spur of his hip. It improves the angle, but his erection still aches in the tight drainies.

“Lose the trousers, too,” Paul tells him and shoves a hand between them to pop the buttons.

Clumsily, they shimmy out of them, down to their Y-fronts damp with precome. John groans as their lower halves reconnect, muttering, “Paul, fuck….”

With strong hands he grips John’s arse, applying even more force as he meets every thrust. His hips jerk and body stiffens in Paul’s arms—cries smothered by his mouth. Even as he finishes, Paul uses his limp weight to get himself the rest of the way there. His fingers dig into John’s lower back, leaving penny-sized mottles of red on his skin. 

Without a hand on him, he comes even harder than the last time. Back arching and John’s name spilling like water from his lips because it’s no longer one of several on a list for some daft game. 

Lazily, John kisses his neck, noses the small divot at the base of his throat. He maneuvers off Paul the slightest bit, still splayed over him with half of his limbs and torso. In the silence, they breathe each other in—the sweat and come and resolution.

After chucking their sodden pants to the floor, they burrow beneath the covers. Until now, they’ve only ever stuck to the tacit top-and-tail arrangement. Never before has Paul been close enough to count the shades of amber in John’s eyes. Enough to keep him busy for a millennium.

Brushing away the sweaty fringe to see them better, he says, “I’ll do better on the solo next time.”

“Fuck the solo, Paul. As long as we keep doin’ that, you can have any bloody solo you want.”

He laughs. “D’you say that to all the new band members?”

“Only the fit ones,” John retorts with a smirk and kiss to his chest. “I shouldn’t’ve made such a big fuss over it anyroad.”

Shrugging, Paul slips a leg between his warm thighs. “I’m kinda glad you did now.”

Vaguely, he begins to realize how much they need each other. He needs John’s bellicose tendencies to move them forward, and John needs someone who won’t back down from a challenge. 

“Sometimes it pays to be a bastard, eh?”

With a smile he rests his head back against Paul’s chest. It imprints against his skin like a regal seal—unique in its ability to ruin his night and piece it all back together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading and I appreciate your comments <3


	3. Highest Bidder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> smothermeinrelish: "I need an AU right now where Paul’s broke in quarantine, sets up an OnlyFans account, then auctions his bottom virginity to the highest bidder."
> 
> anonymous: "John would drop his savings and go into debt bidding on Paul’s arse on Only Fans."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how OnlyFans works, I only watch youtubers make fun of other youtubers who have one. so consider this the Walmart version (I almost named it LonelyFans)

For months John has sat in front of his computer screen and virtually thrown money at the gorgeous lad. Not a cent of it felt wasted, and in fact, an entire pay cheque had been depleted some nights. Because, unlike other OnlyFans he has subscribed to, Paul puts on a proper show. 

Physically, there was an arousing clash of femininity and masculinity about him. Copious black hair scattered across his pale thighs, always salaciously spread for the camera, and such overt manliness offset by the high arch of eyebrows and low sweep of lashes on his boyish face. If he were the centerfold for a magazine, John could easily get off on his looks alone; but the true sight to behold was his performance. Lithe and lean, his body writhed against the mattress like an angel losing its wings. And he always knew exactly what to say, as though it were only John and no other viewer on the other end of the camera lens. 

With spindly fingers or small toys inside of him, he always complained about having never been topped. But now John and the other 1,308 subscribers have an opportunity to be his first.

He nearly chews his bottom lip off watching all of the bids outmatch his own. When the bidding began, it came as no surprise to see the numbers climbing like stocks on Wall Street—£10, £20, £45. They all know how invaluable the lad’s arse is, round and firm and virginal. 

Clearly, Paul knows it too. His tight leather shorts have been pulled down just enough for him to wrap a hand around his erection. Legs pretzeled beneath him to accentuate the coveted prize, he jerks himself off slowly, relishing the attention. 

God, John can’t imagine losing now.

“In the thousands now, are we?” he says throatily, eyes on the bottom left corner of his screen. “I’m flattered, lads.”

Most of the bidders have bowed out, but one consistently bests every offer John submits.

Feeling oddly possessive, he mutters, “Fuck off, he’s mine.”

Fingers furious on the keyboard, it’s the first time he has ever attended one of Paul’s streams without a hand down his trousers. And even more of a slave to his libido this time, he goes all in: £1,678.

Paul moans at the newest offer, fist quickening.

Body taut with anticipation, John waits for the next wager from thickerthanabowlofoatmeal69. All of his financial savings stare back at him on the screen. Every tip he has ever earned, every penny of birthday money from relatives—all of it poured into some randy bloke on the internet.

“Going once…,” Paul announces with a pleased smirk, “going twice….”

John’s heart rabbits in his chest, expecting another subscriber to swoop in at the last second and claim the win. Through his speakers, all he can hear is the rapidity of Paul’s breath, the slide of his slick hand. With a guttural moan he comes across the black leather, and John can’t help but feel he tipped him over the edge.

 _“Sold_ to…Winston O’Boogie.” He breathes a laugh at the username. “Cute.”

John’s cheeks redden so quickly he nearly blames their heat for the sweat on Paul’s neck.

Slowly the realization trickles in, until he’s overcome with disbelief. He leans against his headboard with a breathy incredulous laugh while Paul lazes on his navy blue sheets and idly traipses his fingers over his white-streaked belly.

“I’ll message you for more information, Winston, love.” He rolls onto his stomach and stares, with eyes more sultry than a summer night, directly into the webcam. “I’m lookin’ forward to meeting you.”

With a wink he turns off the camera.

Back on the homepage of Paul’s account, John stares at his profile picture—a pretty face that no longer will be an unreachable pixelation across internet cables. 

Smiling, he closes his laptop and whispers, “What the fuck did I just do?”

* * *

The week following their scheduled meeting, John still tunes in to Paul’s sessions. The day after his high-stakes bid, he had immediately hesitated when he joined the chat, hearing the desperation in the click of his mouse. But Paul had noticed his username in an instant and assuaged his worries with a direct shout-out: “Winnie, I was wonderin’ when you’d get here, love.”

On the edge of his computer chair, John had licked his lips and typed into the chat, _broke af rn but i still love a good show ;)_

“Mm, this one’s all for you, darling,” he had moaned and a gossamer sigh bled from his lips as he slipped the oblong bullet inside himself.

Even as similar interactions occurred every subsequent night, John was awaiting the second Paul would call the meeting off. Refund him the money or simply keep it without following through on his end of the deal. His pessimistic inner voice knew it was too good to be true.

Or so it seemed, until he was making his way to London in the ashen Friday dusk.

* * *

Beyond the door, music plays softly as though coasting down a windy street. John strains his ears over the shuddery exhales ricocheting from his cloth mask and recognizes the artist as Joy Division. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he straightens his shoulders. He considers snatching the mask off but recalls the thorough testing, both for the virus and STDs, Paul had required of him.

“Who is it?” demands a voice that has never felt this reachable through wiry headphones.

“John—er, Winston.”

The latches unlock and the door opens.

More dressed down than John has ever seen him, Paul wears a steel blue shirt with a small white anchor adrift in the center. The dim light of the hall sharpens all of the darkness about him. Black skinny jeans make his legs seem even more endless, the color rivalled by his raven hair and pencil strokes of eyebrows and furry forearms. John could step back into the night and hardly notice the difference.

If he doesn’t consider how he arrived at this point, it almost feels like any other casual hookup. 

Smiling, Paul steps aside to let him in. “Do I have to call you Winston O’Boogie for the rest of the night?”

“I’d actually pay you more _not_ to,” he laughs. “My name’s actually John.”

“Well, make yourself at home, John.” He gestures to the beige settee on his way to the kitchenette situated behind it. “Sorry to be so crazy about the tests, y’know, but streamin’ from me hospital bed wouldn’t be all that sexy, would it?”

“I don’t know,” he answers, shedding both his mask and jacket. “Perfect opportunity for some nurse-patient roleplay.”

As Paul rummages around in the refrigerator, John soaks in the homely flat. Faintly, he chuckles at the 10-hour-long Youtube video of an ambient fireplace playing on the telly. Above the record player stand, two guitars—a mahogany acoustic and an electric Les Paul Goldtop—hang like impressive works of art on the wall. The personality crowded inside makes the place seem larger than it is. 

John typically never has the opportunity to see where the money he spends on these people goes. With Paul, it seems to be money well spent.

“You might be onto something there,” Paul laughs, returning with two beers. “Bevvy?”

“Ta.” After cracking his open, John nods to the six-stringed beauties. “Do you play?”

“Yeah, that’s on a separate channel, though.”

“The family friendly one, eh?”

Paul smiles and reclines comfortably along the settee. “I’m paid to keep my clothes _on_ there.”

Eyes drawn to the wide splay of his legs, John shakes his head. “A shame really.”

They share a smirk as he takes a seat beside Paul.

For close to an hour they chat while nursing a few more beers. To John’s great surprise he learns that the lad is somewhat of an amateur to this line of work. A university student who couldn’t find a part-time job when quarantine began, he had decided to open an account and try his luck through more taboo means.

Between the artificial firelight and soothing crackle of the record player, Paul’s company feels more genuine than any proper date John has had in months. But on several occasions, when Paul’s eyes are a well he wants to drown in, he has to remind himself he _paid_ for this attention. 

“Can I be honest with you?” Paul suddenly asks.

“Of course,” John says, though his stomach coils nervously.

_He wants to call if off, doesn’t he?_

“I’m dead relieved you’re hot. I was afraid it’d be some old perv or somethin’, y’know?”

Reassurance floods his chest until he’s forced to laugh just to expel some of the pressure. “Just a _skint_ perv now.” With a shake of his head, he adds, “It’s still bloody surreal to be ‘ere.”

“This is all as new to me as it is to you.” Paul shifts closer on the settee, fingers carding through the thick hair at the back of John’s head. “I always notice the things you say in the chat, y’know.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, all the stuff you ask me to do. Like that one with my legs behind me head?” In demonstration he stretches one out and, as it lands in John’s lap, he folds a hand over his knee. “Very creative, that. I didn’t even know I could bend that way.”

Memories of his body contorting to John’s anonymous and filthy pleasure fill his mind; there’s hardly ever a request he denies. With a hint of disbelief, John asks, “So you’ve really never bottomed before?”

“Nope. Just fingers an’ little toys or whatever, but nothing…proper.” 

Enticed, his hand inches up Paul’s thigh. “How do you wanna do this then?”

“You tell me, babe,” he murmurs lowly, fingers still petting John’s hair in a manner that seems to rope him into his words. With a smooth tip of his head, he noses the shell of John’s ear. “For the price of sixteen-hundred quid, my arse is yours for the night.”

* * *

It takes John a handful of minutes to process the fact he’s standing in the room that only ever fit within the borders of his laptop. The walls are decked out with rock ‘n’ roll legends and stars from the golden age of Hollywood. It had been yet another characteristic that set Paul apart from anyone else John had seen on the site. Blending the worlds of private and public, a tripod stands at the foot of the bed with a camera and a host of implications mounted on top.

Immediately Paul attempts to move it out of the way, muttering, “Sorry, I—”

“S’okay,” John is quick to assure him. With a shrug he even suggests, “You can leave it if you want.”

“Are you sure?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “As long as I get a copy after.”

“Of course,” Paul says with a smirk, presses the red record button, and guides John to the bed by a hand on his chest.

White heat pools his lower belly. God, they’re seriously doing this.

As Paul straddles him, they maintain a heady eye contact, feeling out one another and the trust that such a situation necessitates. Thoughtlessly, John’s arms wind around his thin waist, lips capture his for a deep kiss. For months his mouth had tingled with the urge to taste him and coax from him every pleasured breath that sounded like a thunderclap through his headphones. On top of fulfilling those previously unattainable dreams, he’ll even have a physical copy of this night to remember every second.

Their clothes steadily form a pile on the floor. Despite Paul hardly knowing him at all, John has viewed his livestreams enough to develop a sense of familiarity. He knows what Paul likes. He knows what to look and listen for. Quick and seamless, he can join the same wavelength and feel its ebb and flow in the choreography of their hands.

“Fuck, you’ve got a marvellous arse,” John mutters with a scent of awe. His hands caress Paul’s pale cheeks with reverence, head bowing to kiss it.

“Think I sold myself short, do you?” he teases, turning his head to look at him.

“If I said yes would you leave me for a better deal?”

“Nah,” Paul laughs in a breath that thickens as John’s hands spread and tongue laps over his sensitive entrance. _“Shit_ …I’d, I’d be pushin’ my luck then. Might, _mm,_ get someone bloody mingin’.”

Harder than he’s ever been, it takes every ounce of willpower in John not to tug himself off. Eager to experience everything Paul was willing to offer for this one-time deal, he had already been pushed to the limits with plush lips around his cock. He can’t stand to keep pressing his luck.

Pulling away with a final nip to Paul’s bum and an ache in his jaw, John asks, “You ready?”

His body speaks for itself first, repositioning on his hands and knees to open himself wider. “Fuck yes.”

In his bedside table drawer, Paul keeps enough lube and condoms to supply his entire university, and John earns a half-hearted slap for ribbing him about it. Swift and businesslike, he prepares himself, only allowing his cock enough strokes to fully coat it in the oily substance. For Paul, however, he exhibits more patience and deliberation. Even if the lad is used to a few fingers and objects, a hefty responsibility to make Paul’s first experience an unforgettable one resides on John’s shoulders.

Hand at the base of his cock and eyes drinking in the smooth expanse of Paul’s back, he asks, “Ready?”

His sweat-matted raven locks nod in confirmation; he fists the sheets in anticipation.

With all of the hesitance of threading a needle, John slowly pushes in. He bites his lip at the first shock of tight warmth, unable to look away from their point of contact. Beneath his hands, Paul’s body becomes a wound coil and John stills inside of him to offer a moment for acclimation. 

“Still alright?” He strokes the small of Paul’s back reassuringly, wishing he could kiss away the creases in his brow. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

“No, I’m—I’m good. Keep goin’.” 

The words leave his throat in a strangled knot, but John obliges. Well aware of the pain that preceded the pleasure during his first time, he feeds him every inch at a gradual pace. Each gentle thrust melts the rigidity from Paul’s spine like liquid heat. John’s fingertips ride the deep curvature of it as though collecting the tension. 

“That’s it, just relax,” he soothes.

Paul’s breath tunnels its way out of him again in feathery sighs, no longer compacted in his chest. John splays his hand over the center of his back and encourages him lower, elbows and chest meeting the mattress. He moans, fingers feasting into Paul’s hips like cigarette burns, as the new angle draws his cock deeper. 

“Mmm, _yes—”_ He clutches the footboard above his head, knuckles pale with desperation against the ebony wood. “Right there…that was, fuck.”

Even online John has never seen him this unraveled and vocal. And now the camera captures every euphoric microexpression on his face for him to watch later and experience from another perspective. 

Hips a piston, he drives harder. Paul’s left hand disappears between his legs, stroking himself off in time with a rhythm that his back arches hungrily to meet. 

“Oh John—oh fuck,” he moans, and then his walls are clenching even more unyieldingly around him until John’s own climax bowls him over. 

A broken groan grates his dry throat. The pleasure slugs through every muscle in his body as though delivered by the sharp kiss of a needle. Hips stuttering, he never wants it to end.

Soon enough, he finds himself collapsing on top of Paul anyway.

Feeble moans still furnish the air, their source not entirely known. John smears open-mouthed kisses along his sweat-slick skin and the tang of their passion is an aphrodisiac on his tongue.

“Fuckin’ hell, I’ll Venmo you the money back,” Paul says breathlessly, head turned so his words aren’t lost in the mattress. “In fact, _I’ll_ pay _you_ for another round.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” he laughs. “I still haven’t told my flatmate where my half of the rent went this month.”

After a few minutes of recuperation, Paul reaches up to stop the recording and cleans both of them up. As though he can’t be arsed to crawl back to the top of the bed, he instead expends the same amount of effort dragging the pillows down to the foot of it. 

Sitting upright, John is reluctant to overstay his welcome. “Did you want me to stay?”

“Well…yeah,” he answers with a confused chuckle, then glances at the lock screen of his phone. “It’s fuckin’ 3 a.m., mate.”

“I know, but—”

“Sounds like yer flatmate might toss ya out anyway for blowin’ the rent on an internet cam-boy and I’m nothin’ if not charitable. And randy as fuck in the mornings.” Flopping against the pillow, he cocks an eyebrow at John in utmost seriousness. “So! Big spoon or little spoon?”

He gapes at him for a moment. A fond smile flowers from the depths of his chest and with a tiny, disbelieving shake of his head, John knows this was worth every pound spent.

“Little spoon,” he finally decides and settles into the warm embrace of Paul’s arms for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading; leave a comment if you enjoyed


	4. Highest Bidder, Continued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While watching part of their sextape the next morning, Paul makes John an offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not all of these smutlets will have a second part, but yet again I couldn't resist with this one. at this point it should just be a one-shot

The next morning, John wakes up alone. Stretching the sleep from his bones, he scans his eyes over the rumpled sheets and Paul-shaped dent in the mattress. He tugs on his boxers and white undershirt before getting up to look for him.

John finds him on the living room settee. A pair of grey joggers ride low on his hips and a shard of sunlight slants across his pale, naked chest. He would have loved to wake up to that sight curled next to him in bed, but as he steps farther into the room he sees what has piqued Paul’s interest instead. 

Soft moans and the rhythmic  _ slap, slap, slap _ of flesh play from the speakers of the laptop cradled between Paul’s crossed legs. From afar John makes out two figures bowed over one another like erotic marble statues, though the image feels more suitable for a porno than any gallery dais.

He clears his throat. “Am I interrupting?”

Paul turns to look at him, then back at the screen, and shakes his head with a laugh. “No, not at all,” he answers. “Almost done downloading.”

“Mind if I see?”

He pats the cushion beside him and John rounds the settee to join him. 

“Holy shit,” he laughs breathlessly, somewhat surprised, when he squeezes in close for a front-row view of their sextape. 

"I know," Paul says. "Yer a fuckin' natural, love."

Strangely, it doesn’t feel like he is watching himself—this bloke knelt on the mattress with a hunger on his face that, if it didn’t seem to misshape it into a stranger’s, could transport John, almost bodily, back to that moment. Paul’s hand flies to the footboard. His bottom lip is trapped between his teeth and the audio picks up every keening sound John had missed over his own labored breath. 

The blood rushes to his groin all over again.

“Fuck, we look good together,” he murmurs.

Paul’s hand covers his thigh, less than an inch below the hem of his boxers. “My subs would eat this shit up, y’know.”

John smirks, eyes cutting to the outline of a semi in Paul’s joggers. “What’re you gettin’ at?”

“Well…,” he shrugs and inches his hand higher, “I’ll be goin’ live in half an hour or so anyway.”

“This early? It’s not even ten.”

“Told you I was randy in the mornings.” 

His sultry eyes meet John’s with a flicker of deviance. Then the grip on his leg is squeezing like a warning as he leans in to claim John’s lips. They kiss deep and unhurried, with their sextape still playing in the background like a sensual soundtrack. God, how long has Paul sat here watching them this morning, getting hard from reliving it?

Stringing a wet trail down John’s sensitive jugular vein, he whispers, “What if we made a deal?”

John hums throatily, neck arched for the nipping kisses. “Like what?”

“Join me on the stream and I’ll pay you back for the bid, plus half of whatever else we rake in.”

His fingers nudge past the waist of John’s underwear and wrap around his cock, lazily jerking him off…tempting him. A sigh bleeds from John’s lips, legs spreading in approval. It all seems too good to be true.

“Really?”

“Yeah, unless…you’re not comfortable with that.”

“No, no, that’s—yeah” John is quick to say. “Yeah, it’s a deal.”

“Perfect.” Gossamery breath tickles his skin when Paul chuckles at his ineloquence. “I’ll get everything set up.” 

And before John can ever open his eyes, he is shutting the laptop and on his feet.

He whines at the loss of contact. “Wait, no—”

“Keep it up for me, Jock,” Paul calls with an ingratiating simper on his kiss-bitten mouth, “and I’ll make it worth the wait.”

Shooting a wink, he strides into his room.

* * *

Before turning on the camera, Paul had asked John about his limits—the things he is into and what crosses the line. In the end, it had taken less time for him to tick off his turn-offs rather than his numerous kinks. Just in case, they had established a safe word, sugar plum fairies, and outlined any other pertinent details.

Now, he kneels on the floor—carpet scolding his knees and erection as hard as Paul had requested it be—with his lips sealed around Paul’s cock while the lad explains to his viewers, in that seductive dark-brown voice reserved for the camera, how this stream will be slightly different than others. If they hadn’t already caught on by now. But the words stumble out, breath snagging in Paul’s throat because John refuses to let up on him. 

So far, the camera only captures the back of his head bobbing between Paul’s spread legs at the edge of the bed. Sloppily and noisily, he sucks him off with an extra dose of enthusiasm. Turned on at the idea of putting on a show for the hundreds of others envying his position. At this point, the money is merely an added perk.

Deep and rough, Paul rummages a hand into John’s hair, telling him, “They want me to pull your hair.”

John hums around him at the tight-fisted tugs, rolling lust-glazed eyes up to look at him. An erratic buck of Paul’s hips sends his tip to the fleshy back of John’s throat and his head lolls on a lust-loosened neck.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he breathes with another pull that scatters chills down John’s spine like tossed jacks.

God, he could stay down here until his knees screamed out in agony. His anonymity is rousing in its own unique way, as he gratifies Paul without ever showing his face to the camera, like a phantom of pleasure. But apparently Paul, and his viewers, have other plans.

With a thick fistful of hair, he abruptly hauls John off his cock. He scrambles to his feet, panting and saliva smeared around his chin, and scarcely has time to think or breathe before his mouth is colliding, all teeth and tongue, with Paul’s.

He guides them up the bed while they kiss, hand making a leash of John’s tender scalp. With the swiftness of a predatory death-roll, he flips their positions and John bounces against the mattress, dizzy with desire. He takes the opportunity to catch his breath as Paul works him out of his checkered boxers. 

They’re discarded somewhere over the laptop screen, which Paul then slides closer to them on the bed for the optimal angle, like a true professional. Idly kneading John’s thighs, he skims over the stream’s chat. 

“You lads wanna see  _ me _ bottom?” With a wicked chuckle, he hovers over John’s cock like he might sink down on it at any second and give the people what they want, but then his hand is gradually pushing John’s left leg higher and higher by the bend of his knee. “Well, now, that was Winston here’s little personal treat. Thought I might return the favor, y’know?”

John squirms on the mattress, the anticipation like a scalding hand on his belly. “God, yes.”

“Don’t move that leg now, baby,” Paul demands hotly, teeth nipping at its underside.

Nodding, he swallows thickly. When lithe fingers begin stretching him, John feels loose and taut all at once, a spring bounding down a staircase. At one point, he chances a peek at the laptop screen, but rapidly fastens his eyes to the ceiling to keep from coming far too soon. 

Of course, he has been one of those lewd voices on the stream before. But reading all of the filthy fantasies now—on the receiving end of them—the words shoot straight to his cock.  _ Use one of the toys; tie him up; make him beg. _

With an arm still pushing his hamstrings to their limit, Paul enters him in one smooth slide. “You feel so good, love,” he moans. “Was I this tight?”

Sweat dots John’s brow, crooked leg trembling more than his voice when he answers, “Yeah, fuckin’…perfect.” 

In an antithesis of their previous night, Paul builds the tension quick and arrhythmic. The angle is sublime, body shivering with every deep thrust. Cherry-picking certain commands from his subscribers, he practically has John sobbing from the stimulation—hungry hands returning to his hair and pace varying to the satisfaction of others rather than himself and flat palms striking resoundingly on his creamy thighs. 

Every so often a notification chimes in a voiceless praise of its own, money poured at their feet from the show. 

And when John finally cries out, fingertips reddening the flesh of Paul’s arse, he feels himself drowning in more than just their currency. White noise reverberates through his skull and blood hammers against his veins. He melts into the mattress, despite Paul firmly maintaining his flexible position for his own pleasure. A groan nestles into the crook of John’s neck like an aftershock before he is slipping out of him.

With the chimes and bells still ringing out, more distant to his ears now, they rest there in weighty silence. Paul kisses his neck, tongue lapping up a trickle of sweat behind his ear. Eventually, though, he has to return his attention to the livestream.

Limbs gelatine, John lies there and listens to him sign off.

“Poor thing is all shagged out,” he tells them with a fond laugh and a hand blindly stroking John’s chest. “Hope you lads enjoyed this change of pace. We certainly did.” 

When the laptop finally shuts, Paul curls back beside him and kisses his shoulders. “You were bloody brilliant, John,” he whispers in his ear. “They loved you.”

He hums quietly, mind still splintered.

“Doin’ alright?” Paul chuckles.

“Mm, fab.” His eyes flutter open, drinking in the sight of Paul’s sated glow. “Don’t know if I can move.”

Fingers that have since found tenderness rake through his sweaty fringe. “Well, you don’t have to yet,” and then Paul is resting his head against his chest and slotting a leg between his aching thighs.

* * *

A few hours later they enjoy a lunch of dollar-menu McDonald’s on Paul’s bed, despite the fact John can now afford a  _ full _ meal with the replenished funds in his bank account. It had come as a massive relief to text Ringo that he had gotten the rent back, to which his friend had wanted to know when he even lost it. But he would have to delve into all of that later. 

Presently, with  _ That ‘70s Show _ serving as background noise, he and Paul have been discussing the life of a camboy and sharing humorously embarrassing stories of past sexual escapades. 

“Gotta say,” John tells him through a mouthful of chips, “this might be up there with wildest things I’ve ever done.”

“Have you never considered something like this for yourself?”

“What, chokin’ my chicken for a stream?” he laughs. “I haven’t got the face for it, love.”

“Shut up,” Paul says, swatting his side. “I told you they were droolin’ all over you and those loose hips.”

He shakes his head, corner of his mouth quirking. “By the end of it I forgot people were even watchin’.”

“Yeah, I kinda did, too, a bit.” Suddenly quiet, Paul stares down at his fingers toying with the receipt paper, a tinge of his lucency withering from his face. “It was nice havin’ someone else, y’know? Just been so used to doin’ it on me own all this time.”

John’s heart clenches. How many of those nights that Paul spends in front of the camera end with a bloke who feels more alone than ever, even with the eyes of hundreds on him? Finally, John is seeing the soul that so many people neglect for the body. And yet it is twice as beautiful.

“I’m clearly no professional at it, but…I’d love to join anytime you want me to,” he offers softly, and lays a hand on his knee, thumb stroking a slow back-and-forth. “Cameras or not.”

A gentle, appreciative smile unfurls along Paul’s lips. Nodding, he squeezes John’s hand and meets his eyes. “Definitely.”

“Now for a really tough question,” John announces, eyebrows raised, with the hope to dispel some of the sadness that has crept up on them.

And the emotions bundle themselves up masterly, as though Paul has concealed them countless times before. “Shoot!” 

“Who, in your expert opinion, is the most fuckable character on this show?” he asks with a nod to the telly on Paul’s dresser.

Laughing, Paul cuddles beneath his arm and into his warm side, like John is more than just a bloke who won a bet. “I thought you said it’d be tough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they couldn't _not_ watch the sextape...
> 
> thanks for reading, leave a comment!


	5. Sketches in Paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon: Paris, 1961. It’s raining heavily outside, they can’t go out and a bored John asks Paul if he can draw him. Ofc Paul says yes because it wouldn’t be the first time, he used to model for John whenever he needed help with some art project. So, John gets his things ready and just when he’s about to start his drawing, he looks up from the paper and sees Paul on their tiny bed, just laying there naked with a cheeky smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this anon wasn't even sent to me personally, but passed down from my friend smothermeinrelish.
> 
> I thank her for sharing it with me and hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (I so badly wanted to title it "draw me like one of your French boys" but it doesn't quite fit the mood, so I'll save it for another time)

A fat droplet of rain races down the door’s window pane, conjoins with another drop, and slides even more swiftly the rest of the length down. John huffs on the chilly glass and scribbles a checkered finish in the ball of condensation. With idle interest he spectates another watery marathon, then wipes it all away sighing.

On their shared bed Paul pores over a French newspaper as though he can understand any of it. Considering John translates every fifth word for him, he figures he hasn’t even made it beyond the headline yet. The nail of his index finger slits vertically between his top and bottom incisors in concentration. Both of his knees are bent and bare feet planted into the mattress, toes occasionally curling into the sheets like the words are gripping despite the language barrier.

A new cure to his boredom strikes John, fingers as restless as the runners on the pane.

He asks, “Could I draw you?”

Paul’s eyes slowly roll up from the paper. “Draw me a what?”

“For starters, I reckon a more obvious question since that one flew over yer head.”

A smile fits around the bitten nail in his mouth. “‘Course you can draw me,” he says, folding the newspaper with Jim McCartney care and tossing it to the floor. “Where should I be?”

“Bed’s fine.”

John rummages through his bag for his sketchbook and two different shades of pencil, light and dark. Knowing a guitar would be too much to lug around, he had instead packed a few art supplies for any lulls in their schedule. He never expected to use any of it, but Hamburg had taught him to be a better-to-have-it-and-not-need-it type of bloke.

When he turns around, however, he feels wholly unprepared.

In the time it has taken him to gather his supplies, Paul has soundlessly stripped his clothes and made a pile of them on top of the newspaper. John’s eyes slowly graze over his naked body—only one leg crooked now, with his nest of pubic hair between them so dark against the fairness of his skin that it is a trap for John’s eyes; the fingers of one hand splay over his chest like colors on a pallet and, at the end of the line, a cheeky smile rests on his lips.

“Not very professional, Macca.”

“I thought you could use the practice,” he excuses, but the shimmery lust in his eyes gives him away. “Just try not to get distracted.”

John snorts, already warm around the collar. “No promises.”

The legs of a rickety chair squeal along the floor when he drags it closer to the bed. He straddles it backwards and leans his sketchbook on top of its low back for a makeshift easel. Flipping past old drawings of Paul, in John’s bedroom or the garden chair at his own home…and decidedly clothed, he finds a clean page.

Shoulders hunched, he begins a rough outline.

They have done this plenty of times before, but it is different now that his mouth and hands have learned the landscape more intimately. The night before he had taken Paul apart with his touch and now stitches him back together, line by line, on the page. Keen eyes trace the angles of his graceful body before his pencil retreads the same path. 

Paul’s sultry gaze is more tangible than the heat of a fireplace would be in this cold room. John grapples with his focus, which proves itself a feat when he constantly glances back and forth to sketch the flaccid cock against Paul’s thigh. Swallowing, the flavor of his lust sweet, he readjusts in his chair. 

“I like watching you draw,” Paul remarks quietly. 

John peers at him over the thick rim of his specs. “Why’s that?”

“It’s like art in the art. Feels like I’m watching a young Van Gogh or somethin’.”

“I can hear you just a bit better, though,” he quips.

Seriously, Paul continues, “You look like you’re in yer element.”

“That’s the trick, though, innit?” John blends the shadows around the hollow of his collarbone with the pad of his thumb. “To pretend you’re doing something important.”

“I don’t think you pretend, though.”

They lock eyes, sincerity introduced to insecurity, and his lip curls. “Then it’s working.”

The minutes tick on around them. John tries to salvage the integrity of his work in the wake of a strong desire.

His forehead corrugates while he perfects the fullness of Paul’s lips and simultaneously draws upon the memory of them meshing with his own for an added dose of inspiration. He could probably do this with his eyes closed, but then wouldn’t be able to catch the gradual, surreptitious inching of Paul’s hand down his lower belly. 

“Stop movin’,” John scolds in a hushed murmur.

Paul’s fingers curl against his skin, as if to clutch the temptation by the nape of its neck. The tension thickens between them like a veil shrouding his subject. All the while, the rain patters outside with the rapidity of snare drums, a backbeat to the _scratch…scratch_ of his pencil. 

“All done,” John finally says and gets up from the chair to present Paul with his work.

Propping himself onto an elbow, he studies it and the clarity of art luminates his eyes in a way that the confusion of words had failed to. Seeing himself from John’s eyes, with erasure of mistakes and all, he grins broadly. 

“Brilliant as always,” comes his final assessment as he meets John’s eyes.

He lays a hand on his thigh, murmurs, “I had a good subject. Full of surprises, you are.”

“Gotta keep you on yer toes, love,” Paul answers with a smirk. “Wouldn’t want you to be bored in Paris.”

“With you, never.”

The sketchbook closes and thuds to the floor when John leans in to kiss him. He settles on top of Paul’s naked body and takes advantage of the exposed skin with graphite still in his fingertips. As though he can never quite dust the art from his touch where Paul is concerned, John brushes his mouth down his neck and chest. 

Helping him catch up to his own nudity, Paul strips him of his t-shirt. The intimacy is more present than any other time before. The muted light, pattering rain, Parisian holiday—it all creeps up on him and into the tenderness of his hands. All at once, a muse feels like more than something captured on a page.

Paul moans, thready, in his ear when their hard flesh meets. Bed creaking, they rock against each other with the friction a euphoria that John heightens by taking them both in hand. His own breath warms his cheeks from the arching column of Paul’s neck. He feels himself nearing the edge, more tangible than dried paint on the skin, and Paul has this knack for making the drop seem divine.

“Paul, fuck, ‘m almost….”

Then John’s climax is teeming over him, artistry losing its elegance. Teeth sunken into a fluttering pulse and fingers desirous for skin. Because he is nothing if not a work of art with a stroke of madness. 

The added lubricant of his spunk slickens the pumps of his fist and spurs Paul along shortly after. His hand tangles into John’s hair, hips bucking erratically— _A stroke of madness, a stroke of madness—_ and John muffles his cries with a deep kiss. Like plummeting stars, they cling to each other until their heart rates no longer drown out the storm. 

John’s eyelids become weights from the long fingers carding through his hair and the rise and fall of Paul’s chest. What they have is beautiful in its simplicity.

The words rumble through his skull when Paul mutters, “Maybe the rain will let up soon and we can go out.”

Sighing, John embraces him tighter. “Yeah.”

But if it doesn’t, that would be fine with him, too.


	6. Coin Toss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon to smothermeinrelish: I must challenge you and say John and Paul are both bottoms. They flip a coin to decide who tops each time. 
> 
> Anon to smothermeinrelish: John and Paul both give me bottom vibes. They'd top each other of course and enjoy it but would each prefer to bottom. Thats why the double ended dildo is a masterclass invention! Both get to bottom at the same time! 
> 
> Unchained_Daisychain: Lmao that’s how they settle a tie from the coin toss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when I was tagged in these anon responses, I decided to give my two cents (coin toss puns) and combine two different ideas into one. 
> 
> this might be my ticket to hell and it's already storming madly outside, so I could be struck any second now

“Heads or tails?” Paul asks.

Without answering, he stares at the copper coin somersaulting in the air.

“John?” he presses as it begins its descent towards his waiting palm. When it lands flatly inside of it, Paul closes his fingers around it and spreads his hands in a gesture of confusion. “You have to call it when it’s in the air.”

“Are those my only two options?” John quips.

“Fuck off,” Paul laughs, “you know how it works. Now call it this time or I will.”

John cocks his eyebrows at his assertiveness. “You’ve really got the tone of a top right now. Sure you don’t wanna do it?”

The coin soars like a flat bullet between two narrowed eyes. “Call it.”

“Tails…for obvious reasons.”

What a daft way to settle the debate of which one of them gets to bottom. Admittedly, John had gotten even more turned on at having to argue his case while also listening to Paul plead for John to shag his brains out. _“Bend me over the kitchen table if you want, I just need it, babe,”_ he had breathed into his ear, tongue gliding along the shell in a way that nearly made him cave. But whatever stiffy he had then is now withering away from this tedious coin toss. 

After Paul turns the flipped coin onto the back of his hand, a smug smirk plays at his lips. “Heads,” he announces proudly.

“Best two out of three.”

“What? No, c’mon—”

“Two out of three, Macca, give a bloke a chance.”

He huffs as their competitiveness rears its ugly head. “Fine.”

And when the odds finally tip to John’s favor, Paul is the one requesting the best of four out of five. Then four out of five becomes six out of seven, which becomes eight out of nine, until they finally realize neither of them is willing to budge.

“Bloody hell, this is useless,” John groans. “You could be balls deep inside of me right now and both of us comin’ our brains out.”

Paul sighs and rummages a hand through his hair. Like a solar flare, his eyes suddenly illuminate as he says, “Wait! Shit, how did I not think about that?!”

“What?”

He flips the coin back to John and points at him with a salacious smile. “I’ve got something that’ll let us both get what we want.”

As he hops from the bed and flits out of the room, John stares at the doorway with a frown. “We gonna share a fuckin’ cucumber?”

 _“Well…,”_ comes his distant answer, trailing from another room in the flat. 

“This is getting ridiculous, love” John calls with a shake of his head. “Just be a man and shag me with yer cock, leave the veggies out of it.”

Laughing, Paul returns to the bedroom with a blue, double-ended dildo flopping in his hand like a flimsy sword. For a handful of seconds John gawks at it. A prominent vein winds down the entire length, which makes up for some of the girth it lacks. Of course he has known such innovative toys exist, but this is the first time Paul has ever presented this.

“A bit nicer than a cucumber, innit?” he teases. 

John scoots from the bed to inspect it further. “How long have you had this?”

“Christ, I can’t even remember. I bought it to show you but pussied out, so I forgot about it.”

“Why wouldn’t you show me this?”

Paul shrugs. “I don’t know, didn’t wanna scare you off.” 

“Scare me off?” he echoes incredulously. “Bloody hell, we could’ve been settlin’ these arguments for months now.”

“No kiddin’,” he chuckles. Stepping closer, Paul runs his blunt nails down the back of John’s arm, tempting, “Fancy givin’ it a go then?”

“Fuck yeah,” he hums and wraps an arm around Paul’s waist. “Should we flip another coin to see who takes it first?”

A smirk playing at his lips, Paul nudges John’s chin up with the blue head of the toy as though it were the tip of a blade. “Nah, I’ll let you have this one.”

John swallows, a strap of heat streaking through his belly.

On the floor at the end of their bed, they spread out two towels since Paul had reasoned it would be the most spacious spot. Bent over on all fours and thrumming with anticipation, John slowly strokes himself off as he waits for Paul to lubricate both ends of the toy. 

“Why so quiet now, love?” he questions while preparing it for them. “You were dyin’ for me to fuck you earlier. Willing to do anything you were.”

“So were you,” he points out.

“I know, but you almost convinced me, y’know.” A hand smooths across the plump flesh of one arsecheek, and John holds his breath, hand stilling on his cock. Paul sidles closer behind him, the head of his cock prodding John’s entrance, a touch of force behind it like the coin toss was merely some cruel foreplay to a decision he already made. Until the heat and pressure vanishes, and John can hear the simper in his voice when he says, “But maybe another time.”

Then, with no more warning than a hand flat at the base of John’s curved back, Paul steadily pushes the dildo inside of him. His breath stutters out, head sagging between his shoulders like the tension is leaching out of his body from his very sacrum. For a few seconds the angle of the toy adjusts, until he moans at the delicate brush of it against his prostate. 

“Christ,” he whispers, deliciously overwhelmed.

Crawling around to the other end and mirroring John’s position, Paul steadies it by the pliant middle and guides it into his own arse. Throatily, he instructs John, “Move with me, baby.”

Like magnets, their bodies repel and attract one another, again and again, in a blissful congruence. Never before has John experienced something like this—the doggy-style angle but none of the hands on his hips, the staccato moans from Paul experiencing the exact same pleasure as himself. For once they can both have the precise stimulation they need.

Quickening his own pace, Paul urges him, “Faster.”

John reaches behind himself and grabs the shaft of the toy to thrust it more rapidly between them. The one hand bracing his upper body drops down to an elbow on the carpet, the euphoria weakening every joint. 

“Mm, baby, that’s… _fuck me,”_ he moans, cock twitching.

For all the headache it took to reach this point, he can feel himself slipping. The earlier desperation on Paul’s lips and every toss of the coin that toyed with his fate already had wound his body unbelievably tight.

And now he hears the fleshy sounds of Paul wanking himself off, urgent but rhythmic, muttering, “God, yes—that’s, that’s perfect.”

John’s knees spread wider, incidentally knocking Paul’s apart in the process. His lover cries out at the splayed stance that pulls the dildo deeper and deeper. Eager to get him there first, John’s joggling hand ensures most of the force sees Paul. Against John’s leg his toes curl and like a broken record, he chants, “John—don’t stop, don’t st….”

Then John practically feels the shivers rocketing through the silicone and up his own spine when Paul comes jerkily. With a guttural moan, he rocks backwards onto the dildo, driving it even further into John in the process. He gasps, a pressure that would have taken him to his knees had he not already been there. Choking out a curse, he spills onto the towels without a hand on himself—only the one crooked behind his arse to keep the pleasure coursing in endless doses.

When it becomes too much, body lurching at the stimulation, he eases fully to the floor. Their sweaty, sprawled legs tangle between them. Idly, Paul’s foot strokes his calf, toes still curling and unfurling along John’s heated skin. 

Even without touching each other, sex with Paul is better than anything he has ever experienced. 

After a few minutes, John summons the energy to move. Turning around, he leisurely kisses his way up Paul’s prone, sated body—along the knots of his spine and between his relaxed shoulder blades. He sighs at the ministrations, pushes his arse into John’s soft cock. With an arm hooked around to thread his fingers through his chestnut curls, Paul leads him into a sloppy, backwards snog. 

John’s hands rove up and down his smooth skin, and with a naughty nip to his bottom lip, he murmurs, “Got anything else yer hidin’ from me?”

Paul exhales a laugh. “Just an Adam and Eve email subscription.” 

“Well, we best start shopping, love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you thought! thanks for reading!


	7. Through the Crack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous: hello ♡ for your smut series, could you please write something with a bit of voyeurism in it? like one of them peeking in through the doorway and then ashamedly getting off on the sight of the other? it would be great if it's also the first real time they've thought about the other in that way. thanks! x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on my other chapter fics, but I couldn't resist writing this one real quick ;)
> 
> thanks to all who have sent requests <3

The pipes creak in his and Paul’s shared bathroom as the water shuts off. Soon after, the door inches open to expel the scent of cheap hotel soap and a roomful of white vapor. Reflexively, John’s eyes peel open from their faint slumber and blearily focus on the fragmented light across the room. 

As Paul passes the miniscule crack in the ajar door, a curtain of steam dissipates around him and exposes flashes of pinkened skin like salmon breaching from a stream. The sight almost appears mystical—a transcending from one dreamscape to another. Typically, John never pays much mind when they undress in front of each other, but the grogginess of sleep seems to have mismatched a few wires in his brain. He can’t seem to look away. Idly, his eyes track Paul’s movements as he paces back and forth past the crack, finishing his nightly routine.

His mile-long legs eat up the tiles so quickly John’s mind begins to make a game of just how much he can witness in a single step. A soft jawline passes left, a glistening chest returns right, a tuft of dark pubic hair sets it all back in sequence again.

After a few prolonged seconds of peeping, a sense of shame creeps over John like an even darker veil of vapor than the one that bowled into the room. He forces his eyes shut and dispels the reprehensible thoughts. Undoubtedly, the back-to-back shows and limited time to chase skirt has clouded his judgement. 

At the sound of a muttered curse and something clattering noisily on the bathroom counter, John’s eyes snap open again. Now, Paul stands stark naked in front of the mirror with his back to John and the door. When he fails to avert his gaze this time, it is not repulsion that writhes in his gut but something far more unsettling. Blood courses to his hardening cock, and, as though tempted by its crimson trail, John’s hand furtively slinks down his body. He squeezes himself over the lightweight cotton of his pyjama bottoms while his eyes roam over the plump curve of Paul’s bum and the smooth transition it makes into his slender, milky thighs. Runaway rivulets of water trickle down the backs of his legs, splaying the thick hair there, and John’s mouth waters with want to lap them up with his tongue.

Licking his lips just to quell the thirst, he palms himself harder. Christ, the bittersweet cocktail of self-hatred and lust is enough to intoxicate any masochist. He knows he should stop. It isn’t too late to bury his head beneath the covers and pretend this never happened. Never before has he ogled his best mate like this, and perhaps he can still return to that platonic territory if he unhands himself now and refuses to finish.

Yet, in his perverse mind, blue-balling himself at this point sounds like the worse of two fates. 

Hand unflagging against the bulge of his erection, John keeps his eyes narrowed in on this bathroom peep show and teases of skin that somehow excite him more than an entire display would. Of course, he has never been blind to Paul’s conventional attractiveness; he has also never fallen so helplessly victim to it, though. After years of sharing microphones and beds, the impulse to dart in for a chaste, experimental kiss, let alone sneak a glance at his friend’s naked body, has ever corrupted him so forcibly. 

While Paul is doubled over and tugging his underwear up his legs, their eyes catch between the crack. For a brief second that packs all of John’s fears within it, Paul’s hands freeze. The one that remains unseen down the front of his trousers similarly stills. All at once, his body feels tipped over and drained of every drop of lust. 

Still eyeing him, Paul slowly shimmies his underwear the rest of the way up before turning around without a word. The door remains open. No rush to dress quickly and exit the room is made. John’s heartbeat kickstarts so suddenly that he releases a hushed breath from the pressure. 

Is Paul simply going to ignore it, or tomorrow night will John be greeted by the sight of George in the neighboring bed with no explanation? 

In the bathroom, he continues to take his time. His biceps and latissimus dorsi muscles flex like tautening ropes as he roughly towels off his drenched hair. Eager to finish, John gropes himself even more firmly over the fabric. As tempting as it is to shove a hand down his underwear, the barrier between it and his hard flesh somewhat attenuates the sense of guilt that has since heightened by being caught in the act. With his hair mussed and dripping, Paul turns again so that John has a frontal view of him rubbing the towel over his wet chest. 

And fuck, he knows it is risky when any second Paul could peek over again, at an even  _ more _ vulnerable moment, but before he can forestall it, John is coming in his pyjama bottoms with a whimper stifled by the thick duvet beneath his chin. He tries his best to ride out his orgasm without pitching into the solid cup of his own hand and drawing further attention to himself. 

His eyes loosely shut, breath levelling as he ignores the dampness in his pyjamas. He can scarcely enjoy the euphoria of pleasure with guilt riding so closely on its coattails. What kind of depraved person gets off on the sight of their best mate? And now that he has finished, John finds it impossible to look at Paul again.

Eventually, the bathroom lights turn off and the door closes when, fully clothed and smelling citrusy, Paul makes his way to the adjacent bed. Staring blankly into the dark, the shame still lingers with John like a frigid foot against his calf.

Before he realizes what he is admitting, unprompted, he whispers, “I’m…I’m sorry, Paul.”

The room is so silent that even a trickle of breath feels like another confession. Why didn’t he just go back to sleep when he had the chance?

“John?”

He hums, too fearful to speak. 

“Could I come over there?” Paul asks, quiet and throaty, like the hot steam has coated his vocal chords. “The air’s too cold on this side.”

Swallowing, John nods before realizing his answer won’t be seen in the darkness. “Sure.”

As though knocked right side up again, the lust disperses to every filament of his body. Fully expecting an accusation when Paul stepped into the room, he has no idea what to make of such a sudden invitation. Behind him, the duvet shuffles noisily as Paul leaves his own bed and slides into John’s. Warm breath puffs against his nape, the frigid foot of shame now heated by the body settling beside him. Just when John thinks him content and ready to put this behind them, his breath snags in his throat at the bulge that bears tellingly against his arse. 

Paul is hard.

Fucking hell, in all of those glances through the cracked door, John had only ever noticed sheer obliviousness on Paul’s end. But at some point he had become aroused—and what, at the thought of John getting off on watching him?

As though cluing him in on just how unbothered he was with his voyeurism, Paul nestles himself closer. A hand comes to rest on the spur of John’s hip, every impression of his fingers tangible. Offering his own silent encouragement, John pushes into him. The breath against the back of his neck hitches, disturbing the fine hairs, as Paul’s hips roll to meet the resistance. 

They don’t say a word. Whatever had tempted John’s eyes into opening and whatever had tempted Paul into slipping next to him in bed is a force too fragile to impede. 

Their lower halves steadily grind together while Paul uses the cleft of John’s arse to get himself off. The image of them dry-humping like a pair of licentious teens sets his cheeks aflame. Every gossamer sigh of pleasure and whiff of Paul’s soapy skin fogs his mind until all he wants is to whirl around and haul him into a biting kiss.

“Fuck, you looked so good,” he breathes, throat dry as though all of the moisture had been there on Paul’s slick skin.

This close, he can hear the grate of Paul’s molars when he grits his teeth and thrusts harder against him. “How long were you watchin’?”

“Ever since you stepped out. I couldn’t help it.”

“An’ you—you came?”

He falters, still hesitant to confess despite the plethora of evidence in his trousers.

“John?” Paul demands, fingers desperate on his skin with the want of digging the words out of him.

“Yeah,” he finally concedes. “Yeah, I did.”

Emitting a gravelly moan lost in the valley between John’s shoulder blades, Paul shudders and rocks into him. Regretful that he can’t witness the pinch of his brows or delicate O of his lips, John stays put until his cock gradually softens against his arse. The bunched fist on his hip unfurls like the anxious knot in his own stomach, thumb idly stroking an exposed strip of skin from his pyjama shirt.

“Don’t be sorry,” Paul murmurs. 

Silently, John nods his head, eyes fastened on the sealed crack of the bathroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment if you enjoyed! I hope y'all are still enjoying these!


	8. bright are the stars, dark is the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous: Hey I'm not sure if this is a little too wild/taboo for you to consider, but I really love the idea of 1960s John developing a crush/having the hots for his friend/bandmate's young father (otherwise known as older!Paul). If you would consider it (if you have time, of course), I would be ecstatic!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another fun prompt to write; thanks a ton, anon!

John can never recall precisely when the feelings arose.

In the beginning, he had despised another figure of authority in his life, even if by association. Neatly kept and well-spoken, Mr. McCartney had seemed just that, too. The tone appeared to be set early on. During their first interaction with one another, his last words to John had been, “A lad your age ought not to smoke,” before sending his own son out the door with such a rebel. 

He still remembers the curtain of smoke over his hazel eyes, as doe-like as James’, when he deliberately expelled the last threads of it. From the very start, John had tried to break him down…only to later realize he was the one crumbling to pieces.

Because, in an unforeseen twist, Paul—as he begins to insist John calls him—proves to be unlike the other oppressive parents of his generation. When Mimi boots them and their “incessant noise” from the porch, his door is always open. When they need an audience, his ears always listen. He is everything John would want in a mate his own age.

For a while, he thinks it is a fatherly bond that keeps him a frequent visitor at the McCartney residence. But when respect begins to wane in the presence of something stronger, it frightens him to the core.

He can count on one hand the number of times he has been blindsided in his life, and the realization of his attraction to Paul is one of them.

* * *

The first time he shows up to James’ house without him being there, John can feel the heat of the fire he is playing with. It’s the same heat that draws him back here like a freezing man every time. He knows these feelings are wrong. He shouldn’t feel this way about _any_ man, much less a mate’s forty-year-old father.

And James has already snapped at him once, when John showed more interest in Paul’s musical critiques than his own. _“Is it me or me da’ you want in the group, John?”_ But their group has nothing to do with it anymore.

In the midday gloom, he raps upon the door of the small council house to no answer. Despite the dejection washing over him, John considers it a sign that he has gone too far—fallen too fast. 

Trying one last time, nonetheless, he finally hears a distant shout of, “Coming!”

His hope swings as madly in his chest as the door does on its hinges when Paul flings it open. Rather than politely holding it aside for John like usual, he rushes back to the kitchen where a ball of smoke mushrooms as though he had cartoonishly zoomed through the house.

“Bloody hell,” John mutters, following Paul and the trail. 

They lead him to the coughing mouth of the oven, from which Paul extracts a charred brick of a cake. Cursing, he fans the fumes with his tea towel and requests of John, “Crack that window for me.”

When he turns back around, Paul’s hands are pushing defeatedly through his thick hair. It only makes it harder to distinguish the pasty flour from his natural grey streaks. After a quiet moment of mental regrouping, he eyes John dubiously. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” he challenges, because this entire visit had been a shot in the dark after all.

“Well,” Paul begins, dusting his hands on his plaid apron, “if you insist on bein’ truant, you can at least make yerself useful.” An empty glass bowl noisily skids John’s way on the counter. “Crack me some eggs, Lennon, we’re startin’ from scratch.”

With a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, he rolls up the sleeves of his jumper and gets to work. “What’s all this for then?”

“The family’s comin’ over for auntie Gin’s party tomorrow,” Paul explains. “You’re welcome to stop by.”

Glancing at his charred first attempt still cooling beneath the window sill, John snorts and teases, “If this is what yer servin’, I think I’ll pass.”

A hasty whip from the tea towel smarts his hip. “Dot was always better at these types of things,” he says, in case the first strike wasn’t deep enough.

John’s smile shatters as forcefully as the egg in his hand. 

Any time he brings her up, it reminds him just how delusional and twisted his mind is. Why the fuck does he even chase these feelings? A widower who is twenty years his senior and the father of his bandmate—everything imaginable is stacked against him. 

“Mind the shells,” Paul mutters by his ear, hovered over his shoulder without having made a sound.

Somewhat cracked himself from their sudden propinquity, John fishes them from the whites with unsteady fingers. “Thought it’d add some texture.”

“They’re old, la’,” he laughs and claps him on the back. “Texture ain’t on the menu anymore.”

The space between them restored, John can breathe easily again. They carry on, Paul none to the wiser to his inner turmoil, and a fluidity of rhythm forms between them. Within an hour, they slide a cake of superior quality and presentation from the oven. Decadent chocolate, baked to perfection, pervading the house with its freshness. By the time they coat it with a creamy layer of icing, John is salivating at the sight of it. 

“Fancy a taste test?” Paul offers, amused by the famished glint in his eyes.

He nods eagerly. “I skipped dinner to come ‘ere.”

Edging a forkful off the side, he holds it out for him to bite. The intimacy of the gesture flips his stomach and, eyes locked on Paul’s, John wraps his lips around the tines.

“Well?” Paul prompts before scooping himself a bite with the same utensil.

Quietly, he approves, “S’good.”

“We make a decent team, us.” He smiles and wipes the remnants of icing from the bowl with the tip of his finger. “You never told me what brings you by at such an odd time. You knew James wouldn’t be home yet.”

Yes, he knew that. But against all better judgement, he stepped on the bus anyway. No rationale can save him anymore.

Shrugging, he slinks closer and dips his own finger in the icing to help Paul finish it off. “Didn’t realize he _had_ to be.”

“Well, no. You’re always welcome here whenever you like,” he is quick to clarify. “He’s yer mate, though, y’know?”

“I know, but I…I came to see you.”

Their domestic world inside that tiny kitchen violently wobbles on its axis. 

Such an implicative confession can only be followed by another display of brazenness as John grazes his finger against his in the bowl. Paul’s sudden stillness is as dangerous yet tempting as the center of a maelstrom. Emboldened by it, he ventures higher up his hand, until he loosely clutches his wrist. There is ample opportunity to break loose. Paul could toss him out of the house right now and he would understand. 

When it doesn’t happen, he takes his iced finger between his lips and draws it, knuckle by knuckle, against the curl of his tongue. Paul’s lips part as if to speak but say nothing. He merely stares at the mouth suckling his sugary sweet digit. Blood rushes to John’s cock at what he’s getting away with—at the dull flicker in Paul’s gaze.

Slowly, he slips his finger from his mouth with a thin string of saliva snapping at his bottom lip. For a fleeting second, he swears he can feel those eyes grabbing for him.

At the front of the house, the door opens.

In a flash, Paul jerks his hand from John’s grip. With a cleared throat, he is tidying up the counter faster than John can blink. Dirty utensils and bowls and measuring cups accumulate in his hands as though clearing his conscience from the outside in.

“Blimey, I can’t decide if it smells good or bad in ‘ere.” With a crinkled nose, James enters the room but stops in his tracks when he sees his mate. “John…,” he says, a puzzled statement. “You didn’t tell me we were saggin’ off today.”

_“We’re_ not,” Paul emphasizes sternly. 

A glistening index finger is scrubbed dry against his apron; John’s own throat goes cottony at the shame in it.

James rolls his eyes, glancing at him for a smile he can’t offer. “Anyroad, got yer guitar?”

“Left it at mine,” he mutters and unglues his feet from the floor. “We’ll hafta stop by.”

As they exit the kitchen, he hears a rush of water and the lathering of hands from the sink.

* * *

Great Aunt Gin’s 70th birthday is a merry bacchanal lasting well into the night. With champagne nearly as bottomless as the music, it is worlds apart from his own family’s events. John always assumed everyone despised them, that the entire point was to be miserable.

But with a host like Paul, even misery could enjoy itself. 

Pounding away on the piano, he exerts his own gravitational pull. There hasn’t been a song they could throw at him yet that he couldn’t play. With a plate of cake in hand, John leans an elbow on the glossy top and watches him in captivation. 

Until the last possible second, he had debated even accepting the invitation. After all, it had been extended _before_ his audacious stunt in the kitchen. But watching him come to life like this now, shining with Roman candle intensity, John can’t be more relieved he came.

When Paul notices his intrigue, he grins widely and scoots down the piano bench. Only a second of uncertainty passes before John is readily dropping his fork and sidling next to him. The jazzy tune is unfamiliar, requires even more careful study of his lithe fingers. Other times spent on the bench with Paul has taught him how to listen for a melody, though. He had once told him, “They’re like a pattern most times, y’know? Yer ears’ll try to work it out.”

When they finally do, John jumps into the rhythm and proves yet again the chemistry of their teamwork. By the end of it, their small audience of aunts, uncles, and cousins cheers and whistles at their performance. Paul hauls John into his side with a strong arm around his shoulders, toppling the champagne and cake in his stomach, until his teeth ache with the sweetness. 

Maybe he has forgotten all about their lustful exchange in the kitchen. Or maybe, in his celebratory spirit, he holds nothing against John. An olive branch of ebony and ivory leaves has been extended. 

Whatever the case, he can’t help but feel more crazy about him than ever.

When the alcohol runs out and the festivities draw to an end, the house is calm once again. Always a sleepy drunk, James has long crashed upstairs after claiming to “rest his eyes.” John hasn’t seen him in hours. Nor has he seen his father in a handful of minutes, until he eventually discovers him smoking a cigarette in the lounge chair in the backyard. 

As his silhouette casts over him, the smoke around his words is more visible than the movement of his lips. “I’m surprised to see you still up.” 

“‘M not a lightweight like yer son,” he says, despite having only had a glass or two. 

“D’ye have fun tonight?”

“Did I?” he chuckles. “I didn’t realize you were the life of the party.”

“A musician always is. I think you saw that for yourself, too, yeah?”

John nods. “We’ve even got ourselves a gig at Mike’s wedding in a few months.”

“That’s great, John. I’m proud of you lads.”

He takes a step into those words as if to feel more of them. 

Then, out of nowhere, Paul asks, “Was the cake still alright?”

John blinks. The question falls between them along with the ash of his fag. He doesn’t even look at him when he says it, but his delivery is too composed—the subject too _calculated_ for any additional support. 

“Scrummy.” He ventures closer, _feeling_ the words, and straddles Paul’s sprawled legs on the lounge chair. “But it wasn’t so bad the first time either.”

Paul seems to have a gift for giving nothing away. In a subtle recline in his chair, he quietly studies John. The exhaustion from his night of hosting is evident from the loosened tie to the mussed hair—everywhere except the light still alive in his eyes. In the inky night, they’re two hazel tealights and the flickering wicks of his pupils communicate what he refuses to give away. 

As calmly as he can, John unbuckles his trousers. With the desire and fear distending inside him, it’s all his fingers can do not to fumble. 

“You’re shakin’, John,” Paul murmurs.

He swallows audibly. “I’m not cold.”

How could he be so assured in his feelings, yet fragile in his display of them? He wants him so bad. And, call him batty for it, but he thinks Paul just might want him, too.

His hand seeks out the warmth radiating from Paul’s underwear and gropes his soft cock through the cotton. He wets his lips at the realization of what he is doing. Never before has he touched another bloke like this. The curiosity has always been there like a subcutaneous itch, but this is the first time John has actually scratched it.

Nudging the fabric aside with the backs of his fingers, he closes his fist around him.

At first contact of John’s hand on his flesh, a faint noise escapes Paul’s lips…caught between a hum and cleared throat. Then, he is stubbing out his cigarette against the arm of the chair, and John’s stomach burns to think he is offering total attention to his touch. 

Licking the palm of his hand, he strokes him to semi-hardness. He watches the flesh wrinkle in the coil of his fist, his own cock tenting his leather drainies. When he cuts his gaze back to Paul to gauge his reaction, he can see him struggling with the pleasure. Closed eyes make it easier for him to dissociate from the fact that this is _John_ in his lap while the rest of his features settle into his touch.

John hates to see him holding back.

The chair creaks as he leans down over Paul’s cock. He looks down his nose at John and, with the tip resting on his bottom lip, he finally feels like he has his attention again. He takes the head into his mouth, the thickness so apparently different to that of a finger. But he suckles it just the same, dragging his tongue along the underside and relishing the tang. He craves more of his praises—to know that, somehow, this is as okay as whisking his son away into his rock ‘n’ roll group. Still, Paul gives nothing away.

He swallows him down further. His eyes sting with tears as he fights the urge to withdraw. God, he has no idea what he’s doing, only that he needs to get Paul off. He needs to know what it sounds and feels and tastes like. His hand twists with the bobbing of his mouth in memory of what has always felt good to him. Paul’s knuckles pale around the arm of his chair, and it is only by insistence from John’s hand that he transfers his grip into his auburn locks instead. 

He hums and rocks himself against Paul’s knee at his crotch. The vibrations rattling down his shaft seem to come from somewhere deeper than just his vocal cords, more like his strummed heartstrings. Paul’s fingers stiffen in John’s hair as heavy breaths flare his nostrils. And with no other warning, he cums hotly down his throat. The load more than he had expected, some of it dribbles from the corners of his mouth and down the shaft of his softening cock. 

The salty taste makes him grateful to be sober. He wouldn’t have wanted to forget even a second of this. 

He kisses the wispy line of hair beneath Paul’s belly button, still grinding against his leg like a bitch in heat. He can’t even remember the last time he was this incontinent. “Fuck, that was so hot.”

And Paul still won’t _say_ anything—offer any kind of feedback—but John feels his racing pulse beneath his lips. As he tries to wander higher up his body with his kisses, desperate for his mouth, he eventually hears, “John, let me up please….”

Freezing, he glances up. “Paul—”

“Please.”

The finality of his tone is enough to mutilate John’s heart. Even if he hadn’t lifted a leg to let him up, Paul seemed to have been willing to wiggle from his weight somehow. Desperate to escape him and the aftermath of what they did. Over his shoulder, John watches him tucking his shirt back in on the way to the back door.

He clenches his jaw and turns back to the empty chair. Legs still spread around the imaginary legs beneath him, he tosses himself off, quick and grudging, and cums into the seat where he had been. 

When he wakes up on the floor of James’ room the next morning, the shame trickles in like the gradual creep of sunlight across the dusty floor. He loathes to even leave the room but eventually does, and a hushed conversation from the sitting room gives him pause at the top of the stairs.

“We’ve been mates for months,” James is arguing, “but now he’s suddenly a problem?”

“It’s not up for debate, son,” comes Paul’s rebuttal, with the same detachment from the night before as though he couldn't even sleep it off. “He’ll only get you into trouble.”

“That’s what everyone bloody thinks about ‘im!”

“Did you ever consider there might be a reason for that?”

There’s a pause and John can feel the weight of it sitting in his bunched fist.

“I ain’t gonna stop bein’ mates with John,” James decides resolutely. “You can sod off with yer bullshit rules.”

“Well, so long as you still live here, you don’t have a choice but to follow ‘em.”

A loud shatter causes his skin to jump, and John backs out of sight in the nick of time when he hears James storming towards the front door. The walls tremble as it slams on his way out. With his own palms itching for a confrontation, he wastes no time in descending the stairs.

In the sitting room, Paul is shaking his head and picking glass from the carpet like grass blades. Apparently, a teacup had taken the brunt of their argument. He glimpses at John only a second before lacklusterly greeting, “Morning, John. Kettle’s on the stove.”

“Am I no good for James or no good for _you?”_ His words are more shards scattered to the floor for Paul to gather.

He sighs. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, John, but—”

“No yer not.”

“—I have to do what’s in the best interest for my son.” 

“I find that bloody hard to believe,” John scoffs bitterly. “You only grew a conscience _after_ you let me suck you off. Everything you do is in yer own self-fuckin’-interest.”

Paul stands from his knelt position like those accusatory words have physically lifted him. “Christ’s sake, will you keep your voice down, please?” he hisses. Scrubbing a hand over his brow, he shakes his head. “This can’t happen anymore, John. Once is already too many times.”

“An’ it barely happened then. You fuckin’ _left_ me out there, Paul—you ran away from it.”

Helplessly, he tosses his hands up. “Bloody hell, I needed to think.”

“Well, I don’t,” John decides with indifference. “We’re both adults, so I don’t know what yer afraid of.”

“You’re only _twenty,_ John. You think you’ve got it all sussed, but you don’t.”

“I know how I _feel!_ That should be enough,” he says, convinced by how simple he could make it all seem.

“See, that’s exactly what I mean,” Paul laughs incredulously, boiling his blood. “There’s so much more to consider than that.”

And now he’s starting to sound like the other parents John _does_ despise—like the one he assumed he was from the jump. If only that had been the case all along, he wouldn’t even be in this fucking situation.

Jaw stiff, he suffocates the distance between them in three brisk strides, grabs Paul by the collar, and forces their lips together. The kiss is nothing more than a solid press but every bit as resentful and angry as those feelings towards him were in the beginning. Paul’s hands are on his waist in a firm grip, having been prepared to fight him off but never pushing him away. And John is tired of being spoon-fed these teasing moments of hope. He feels the faintest pressure of reciprocation before he breaks away all at once and leaves him in a stupor. 

Without another word, he storms out of the house. Because if Paul can take what he wants and run, so can he.

* * *

When he next sees James, his mate doesn’t tell him about their argument. John figures he wants him to keep coming around as a way to get back at his dad. But if he knew the truth, he wouldn’t be so keen on having him over anymore either. And that has become the toughest part of this to face. After hearing James stick up for him so adamantly, he only feels like he has betrayed him in return.

For five days, he manages to stay away. Five days…. He couldn’t even last a goddamn week.

* * *

Seldom can John cause disorder in one house without bringing it beneath the roof of another. After several days of bickering with his aunt, she finally snaps and boots him out the door in the middle of the night. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he sets out on the streets for a destination that seems predetermined.

Even so, he hesitates at the edge of the street. With the lights out and night quiet, everything seems so serene without his presence. He hates to upset anything, much less Paul again. But he also can’t be arsed with James’ bedroom window and a handful of stones, so he approaches the door regardless.

He straightens himself expectantly when a living room lamp filters from the window. Wearing a grey dressing gown and tired lines under his eyes, Paul inches open the door. At the sight of him, his forehead corrugates with concern. 

“John? S’everything alright?”

“Mimi kicked me out,” he mutters with a shrug. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“C’mon,” he sighs. “I’ll grab you a blanket.”

Nodding silently, John follows him inside, because of course he is always welcome here. Even when his every step leaves a trail of trouble on their spotless floors like a muddy shoe print, he is still welcome here.

Paul recommends he kip on the settee for the night so as not to wake James. Grateful to have even been granted entrance, he poses no objections. In fact, the feeblest of utterances he can muster before Paul disappears back to his own room is, “I, erm….”

Paused in the doorway, he prompts, “Yes, John?” but now the patience is wavering in his voice.

“I just—I wanted to apologize. For the other morning,” he says to the hands in his lap. “I was a bit outta line.”

Paul sighs quietly, then crosses the room to join him on the settee. John eyes him every step of the way, the corkscrew of tension between them tight in his stomach. When a hand rests on his knee, he can’t decide if it hardens or melts altogether like quicksilver. 

“I’m sorry, too,” Paul tells him, meeting his eyes with sincerity. “What’s between us is between us, not you an’ James.”

_“Is_ there an us?”

He presses his lips together, lifts his eyebrows pleadingly. “Let’s not be daft now, John.”

Tempering himself this time, he looks at the hand on his leg and covers it with his own. “I am sorry, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

“You’re a great person and if we were the same age, maybe….” He shakes his head, not allowing his mind to roam there. “But things didn’t happen that way.”

“It doesn’t hafta mean anything if you don’t want it to,” John promises, desperate to have him any way he can, even if it means barely at all.

“It’s not about that.”

“You kissed me back,” he reminds him.

Paul’s Adam’s apple bobs as his eyes flick to his lips. “I…I know.”

His hand slowly moves from John’s knee to his cheek. “I know,” he utters again, and the tender sweep of his thumb against his skin has his breath snagging in his throat.

_Give in to me,_ his mind chants.

Loosely, his eyes shut as Paul leans closer and his mouth brushes his in a chaste kiss. Another catches the corner of his mouth, stringing delicately along the most sensitive areas of his face. Finally receiving all of the reciprocation he ever wanted, John can hardly speak. Minty breath puffs against his skin and he tilts his head into wherever he feels it next. 

“Paul,” he whispers, begging.

Calloused fingertips tip his chin up before Paul’s parted lips nudge open his own. Threading his hand through his hair, John sighs like the completion he feels is more than his chest can handle. When Paul’s tongue slips into his mouth, he leans more fully into the settee. 

Dominating their kiss, Paul hovers over him with a hand steady at his jaw. Deft and devilish, his tongue skirts over his own in its own utterance of everything he never gave away. Parting enough to breathe, John whispers, “You can touch me.”

He hesitates to press his luck and drive him away again with too much too soon.

But Paul licks his reddened lips and looks down the long fan of his eyelashes at John’s crotch. The hand on his jaw instead palms over his cock. Moaning, John clutches the lapel of his dressing gown. His fingers unfasten John’s fly with far more confidence than he had shown Paul’s own. His pace even filled with more urgency, he takes him in hand for steady strokes of his fist. After several dry but not unpleasant pumps, John brings his hand to his mouth, in much the same way as he did that first time in the kitchen, and licks a bold stripe from palm to fingertips. Eyes heady from desire flutter closed when Paul’s grip returns, slick and firm, to his hard cock.

“Hmm, fuck,” he moans, teeth tugging at his bottom lip. 

“Shh, s’alright, love,” Paul soothes throatily, a simple nickname and hand job having never felt so good.

When his mouth slackens too much to continue their kiss, John buries his face into Paul’s neck and pants heavily while he jerks him off. He nearly forgets not to mar his skin with incriminating purple bruises, so delirious with pleasure. Licking and pecking the pale column of his neck, he reaches his climax in a blissful ascent. With a quiet curse, he spills across Paul’s fingers milking every drop.

As he melts into the cushions, Paul is caressing his hair with his clean hand and telling him, “It’s alright, Johnny,” as though he understands the conflict he has felt this whole time. He weakens at the reassurance, holding him lest he fall apart.

“Don’t leave me this time,” he requests, soft-voiced.

“You were right, it _was_ selfish the first time,” Paul gently admits. “But you know I can’t do that now.”

John noses the pulse at his neck. “I know.”

“I’m sorry.” With a kiss to his forehead, he whispers, “G’night, John.”

* * *

The next morning, he wakes up more eager to see Paul than he had been his last morning in their home. He can’t say where they stand from last night, but this time he has more hope. 

Fleet-footedly, he creeps through the house and towards the rifling in the kitchen, calling, “Paul? Paul…?”

“He’s gone to work,” James says, turning from the cabinets with a frown. “Why you lookin’ for ‘im?”

“Er, wanted to thank ‘im for lettin’ me in last night,” John lies easily. “Thought I’d be doomed to a bus stop all night.”

“Yeah, it was a real treat to see yer lazy bulk on the settee this morning,” he teases with a smile. “Now that yer finally up, though, I thought we could head to George’s.”

With his chances of seeing Paul anytime soon unlikely, he agrees to the visit and returns to the living room for his shoes. Perched on the edge of the settee to tug them on, he notices a torn scrap of paper in the bottom of his right boot. With a frown, he digs it out and his heart lurches at the note written:

_Come back again tonight. We’ll chat._

_Paul xx_


	9. bright are the stars, dark is the sky (ii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good god, I'm so sorry it took me forever to get back to these. thanks for all who have sent requests; if I haven't gotten to yours yet, I still plan to. there's just a good bit on the list right now.
> 
> I wasn't gonna do a sequel for this one, but y'all wanted to see it. hope you enjoy!

Ash flutters into the restless water like torn scraps of paper. The waves lapping at the edge of the docks devour them in swift gulps and Paul wonders how his impulsive note to John would go under. Sink with the weight of his desire or buoy with the hollowness of his remorse?

The undulations alone are enough to make him seasick. The word “chat” had seemed circumscribed with implications that were even lost on him as he wrote it. A chat intended to let John down easy could meander its way into letting him in entirely. 

“Awful quiet today, you are,” Ritchie comments beside him. “Long night?”

“Somethin’ like that.” He drags his hand across his jaw and the fitful night’s sleep crowds against his palm. Turning to his friend and coworker, he says, “Can I ask you a question?”

“‘Course.” 

“What’s the biggest risk you ever took?”

Ritchie snorts. “Rather heavy question for a one o’clock tea break.”

“You don’t hafta answer.”

And for a minute, he doesn’t. He pulls on a ciggie and squints through the smoke and lets the wind beat the words against his face. “I took a risk leavin’ home,” he finally says, and a ship horn bellows in the distance. “No quid to me name, nowhere to go, but I knew it was better than stayin’.”

Paul nods, soaks it in. He always told James the reason he doesn’t have wrinkles circling his mouth like all the other old men his age is because he knows when to shut his gob and listen.

“Why, been feelin’ adventurous lately?”

“Maybe just daft, is all.” 

“Usually one an’ the same, innit?” Conspiratorially, he leans closer and nudges Paul’s elbow. “S’what I love about it.”

He smiles but quickly sobers himself with a hand curled over the cool metal rail. The hardest part about these new trysts with John has been having no one to confide in. Even his closest friends.

“McCartney, Starkey!” comes the gruff shout of their supervisor. “Break’s up! I ain’t payin’ ye to wag yer chins all day.”

They share an annoyed glower—the only thing he  _ can _ share— before returning to work.

For the rest of the day his nerves eat at him with parasitic voracity until he can quell them with a stiff whiskey at home. The empty house unsettles him for the first time in years. Because he isn’t entirely alone. From the mantle and side tables and walls Dot’s demure face bores into him, placid and ageless in its gilded frames. His anxious fingers itch to overturn every photo. She’s already witnessed too much as it is.

The sudden bellying of John’s laugh through the front door sets him even more on edge. He downs another slug while their youthful racket draws nearer. Poking his head into the room, James cheerfully greets, “Hard day, Da’?”

Rough nights and hard days: his wretched new normal. Pointedly, Paul refrains from settling his eyes on John—his even tougher in-betweens. “Always a hard day if it’s worth anything,” he answers, absentmindedly pleating his trousers between his thumb and forefinger.

“Hopefully we’ll have one of those tonight.”

“What’s goin’ on tonight?”

“Got a gig at The Casbah, we ‘ave.” Breezing into the room, his son makes a grab for his drink on the end table; Paul swats his hand away with a frown.

“Why don’t you come?” John speaks up from the doorway. But he remains aslant against the jamb like he already knows the danger of the proximity being offered.

“Save yer breath,” James scoffs. “It’s not really his scene.” 

With that playful jab, he leaves the room. John’s head pivots slightly to watch him go before he stalks further into the room. Voice borrowing the whisper of his footsteps, he says, “I got your note.”

Paul nods, feeling the inevitability of those words like the letters lifted from the page. 

“When you said we’d chat, did you mean…?” He wets his lips, props one hand on the fanned back of the armchair. There’s devastation in his touch. It seeps down the polyester upholstery and bulges against Paul’s rigid spine.

He sighs. “What’s a chat in your book?”

“Well,” lazily John lifts his shoulder, scarcely letting it drop before he descends over him with that invincibility of youth. Or perhaps that’s only John….

For a move so abrupt, his kiss is velvety light. It weakens Paul in the claws of whatever has preyed upon them. He reaches up for John’s cheek, captive to the moment. He tastes of cigarettes and German chocolate and the universal teenage experience. Paul’s lips part for more of that transportation back in time, only to startle himself from the fantasy. 

Muttering, “No no no,” he surges from the chair and onto his feet with frenetic energy. 

“What?” John blinks at him dazedly. 

“I can’t keep doin’ this with my son in the other room,” he says quietly, frustrated that an explanation is even necessary. “This is bleedin’ mad.”

Nonplussed, John urges, “Come to the show.”

“I….”

“Please.”

As words tangle like hair in his throat, James returns with his guitar and suddenly John is slapping him on the shoulder, enthusiastic. “Gear, we’ll see ye there then!”

Paul’s mind reels over these successive changes of pace, and his son even quirks an eyebrow. “Eh?”

“Yer da’ says he’s comin’ to the show.”

“Oh yeah?”

The lilt of enthusiasm in his voice makes it even harder to say no. Damn this Lennon boy. 

He manufactures a grin and concedes, “Wanted to see you lads in action if it won’t embarrass you too much.”

“Not if you stay at the back,” John teases with a wink.

* * *

In hindsight, what sounded like a lighthearted aside may have instead been a subtle warning.

By the time he arrives, The Silver Beatles have already taken the stage and amassed a cellarful of sweaty, twisting bodies. Already he feels as out of place as James had presumed he would in the youthful scene. Unassumingly, he clings to the wall, shadows of music thrown onto it as it practically oozes with its own perspiration in the claustrophobic air. The lads are blistering with energy and charisma—one harmonious body with a fibrillating pulse. This isn’t pulling out a guitar at family events as though it were another guest. This is knowing a guitar more intimately than any corporeal bond and sharing it with a room of strangers. This is commanding a room and every inhabitant of it with the strings that aren’t even attached to their marionette shoulders. 

Paul knew early on that John would be trouble. It was always his son he felt the need to safeguard, though, never himself. Now he wonders how corruptible he would be if he were James’ age, with his own leather jacket and stench of recalcitrance. But no matter at forty or twenty, the malleability of his self-restraint seems to know no age.

A waft of cheap perfume marries the thick cigarette smoke eddying around the place. With a sweet-and-sour tangle his thoughts are roped stiff. “Fancy seeing you here, Paul.”

Somewhat relieved to see another mature face, he smiles politely at Mona, the club owner and drummer’s mother. “Would you believe the boys invited me?”

“They sure do keep you young, don’t they?” she muses, and rolls her dark eyes to the five of them making do with their cheap equipment. 

He follows her gaze but finds his own fixed on John. He’s never seen him so ardent before. Eyes closed and head tilted into the music like it’s telling him a secret. “Dangerously so,” he mutters. 

A dainty hand grasps the bend of his elbow. “Not that you need much help.”

“I need all I can get,” he jokes.

“How about a dance, then? Moving feet can move the hands of time.”

“Forwards or backwards?”

“Only one way to find out,” she laughs.

Paul shakes his head. “Oh, I don’t—”

But Mona already sets both of their hands of time in motion as she tugs him towards the center of the dingy basement. “Ah c’mon, maybe you won’t stick out so much.”

She maneuvers his hands around her supple body like the stiff wooden limbs of a manikin. He hates to give her the wrong impression. But this is the first time he has gone out in God knows when, and splinters soon chip away under the pressure of blood coursing through his veins as he comes alive amid the rock ‘n’ roll vibrations. He laughs and twists with the spry club-owner with a youthfulness of heart that seemed to escape him years ago. In that moment, it’s easy to believe the company that he keeps truly does decide the age of his soul. 

Rivulets of sweat and the fading buzz of a cheap amplifier mark the end of the group’s set. Paul makes a valiant effort to retract himself from Mona’s amorous clutches and catch the lads coming off the stage for a word of praise. But John shoves out of the basement, stiff-lipped, before he can scarcely pry a pinky off. 

Outside the stars are shattered crosses in the sky. Cigarette smoldering between his fingers, John stands against the wall like the nihilist who crushed them. 

“What’s the rush to leave?” Paul begins lightheartedly. “You lads put on a great show, thought you’d stick ‘round for a chat.”

The steely gaze he aims at him leaves no question to the state of the stars. “You really seemed to be enjoyin’ yerself.” 

“Yeah, I was. Something the matter?”

“You’ll fuck a loose old bint, but not me?”

Paul staggers at that, mouth agape.

“I wasn’t trying to fuck her. You asked me to come and I did. I was here for _you.”_ He blinks rapidly, resurfacing from the flood of that confession. “An-and James. I was here for you an’ James, but clearly the whole lot of it was a mistake.”

Whatever jealousy or irritation had dragged John out there suddenly slugs from his shoulders. Extinguishing his smoke, he grabs his arm as he goes to turn and leave. “Paul, wait. It’s not a mistake.” 

And he repeats it, with chilling conviction.

“It’s late. I’ll see you two back home.”

* * *

The creak of his bedroom door stirs him from a gentle sleep. “James?” he calls into the darkness, but the clearing of his blurred vision shocks him awake. “John, what’re you doing? You can’t be in here.”

“I know, I just….” The lock on the door mimics the click of his ankles as he shuffles across the cold floor. “Fuck, I can’t help meself.”

He perches on the edge of the bed, still in his drainies like the moist basement was merely a transition for this very moment. He’s impulsive and, God, Paul is so weak. So weak and lonely and miserable; too old and too young. Here, in his bed, in his room, in the middle of  _ sleep, _ he feels incredibly vulnerable.

“Seein’ you in the crowd tonight, I felt like I was on fire. Then seein’ you with Mona, I think I actually was,” but now John laughs at the ferocity of his jealousy. “I always get hard after a show, y’know.”

Paul’s eyes drop to the front of his leathers. With a voice rubbed raw from sleep, even the unspoken thoughts in his head sound coarse. Swallowing, he quietly asks, “How long’ve you been in there like this?”

“Too long. Thinkin’ about you.”

Thick and sweet, his voice is honey in the sun. And Paul can feel the empty promises oozing through his fingers just the same. Against his better judgement, he spoons them up with summertime recklessness. When John slowly straddles his lap, he can feel his aching desire as tangibly as the eyes boring into him. His memory reclines into the garden lounge chair, where he had been willing to take everything from John and offer nothing.

“You could just watch,” he goes on, reading those rasped thoughts. “Don’t even have to do anything…say anything. I know silence is your safety.”

“I think I’ve been pretty vocal about this whole thing,” Paul responds, disinclined to prove his point so soon.

“Being vocal and being concise are two different things.”

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

John’s lips curl, seemingly amused he can manage both now. “You said that already. Tell me to go.”

So this is their game. He won’t make this hard on Paul, but he sure as hell won’t make it easy either. If the fate of their relationship rests in but a word, why does he choke on it?

As though to occupy himself in the interim of indecision, John slips his hand down the front of his own trousers. Like a charmed snake, the leather moves under the insistence of his palming hand. Paul watches, sunken into the darkness of it in an already shadowed room, and the word thickens and torques in his throat until  _ go _ can only ever sound like  _ stay. _

“Can’t tell ye how many times at dinner I’ve wanted to reach a hand under the table or crawl beneath it all together,” John confesses, lazily tossing himself off. “I don’t know how to stay away from you.”

Paul’s imagination spirals at the images conjured—a stunt as audacious as sinking to his knees right there on the tiles patterned with risk and reward. And he wouldn’t even put it past him. If he’s already willing to creep into his bedroom late at night with a throbber, is there anything John won’t do? 

Because he remembers what it means to be young and impulsive again, Paul reaches for his hips and wriggles the snug trousers down his milky thighs. They splay wider for an unabashed display. His breath hitches as he recounts to Paul the times when his composure wavered. He talks himself off with the not-so-distant memories. How he desperately wanted Paul to bend him over the counter that day in the kitchen. How no man has ever made him feel this way before and the desire rears its head at the most inconvenient of times.

“Do you still want that?” he questions, thick-voiced.

John nods.

“Tell me. Let me hear it.”

He obeys with, “I want it,” and a body twisting to Paul’s like the spoken syllables. “Yes, I want it.”

“I knew from the start you were a naughty lad.” On somewhat of a roll now that his silence has been called into question, he goes on: “I could give that to you, teach you a few things if yer willing to be a good lad for a change.”

“Anything.”

As in the Casbah, his release of all inhibitions enraptures Paul. The role of sex and music in his life seems to be one and the same. He practically trembles with his thirst for it—doesn’t even know what he wants or what to do with it when he gets it. But that’s what Paul is here for. He remembers that feeling of his first time with a bloke: the shivering exhilaration when fantasies become realities.

And John only continues to gaze at him with lust-heavy eyes as though still suspended in that intermundium. As though Paul is his beacon for this journey into the thrilling unknown. He bites his lip before they part entirely like a ripped paper moon. Pasting the pieces back together with his own halves, Paul leans into him. But he still has yet to lay a hand on him…thinks maybe the first lesson can be one of patience. After all, John kisses like he’s running out of time, and Paul like he has to remind him that time is all they have.

Relinquishing the grip on his cock, John’s hand fumbles over the covers bunched around Paul’s lap. 

“I wanna suck you off again,” he whispers into Paul’s mouth. And then his head is bowing over the hard-on in his pyjamas as though afraid that any foreplay will only alot Paul time to gather his senses again. “Will you tell me how? I want it to be good.”

“Such a sweet young thing, aren’t you?” he coos, rifling a hand through his hair. Eyes rolling shut, John cranes into the affection. “Who’d complain about a blow job?”

“I don’t wanna find out.”

Lips pursing into a smile, Paul pets his cheek. “Turn around.”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna teach you.”

His eyes darken, two ink blots on his sheet-white face, before he does as bid of him. Lying supine, Paul guides him backwards until his opened fly meets his own open mouth. With his clammy hands sticking against the leather straining around the backs of John’s thighs, he explains, “Try to follow my lead, alright?”

Moist breath ghosts across John’s already slick cock, eliciting a deep exhale from the bottom of the bed as though exorcising the feeling. The fingers of one hand curl, reflexive, around Paul’s ankle. As Paul runs his tongue over the tip, John still has yet to make his own initiative. But the initial curvature of fingers around his base shocks him into action. He replicates the gesture on Paul’s own flesh but ventures no further. 

At his hesitation, Paul teases, “C’mon now, I’ve seen you on a mouth organ.”

Then a smile is extending around his hard flesh while slick lips mimic the slide across cold steel. Paul shuts his eyes, dialed into John’s body, only to feel every flick of his tongue mirrored on his own. There’s immaturity in his ability, but he only finds himself turned on by their contradiction of skill. Never before has he experienced the learning process on his own skin. All the while, his mouth only ever leaves John’s cock to hand him these nuggets of guidance.

“Just relax with it…,” Paul coaches until his tip meets the fleshy back of John’s throat.  _ “Fuck, _ there ye go.”

For once he heeds his own advice, releasing the tension in his neck. He caves to the rhythm of John’s hips, staccato and instinctive, and lets him fuck his pliant mouth. Muscles shift like tectonic plates beneath Paul’s roving fingers on his thighs. One thing is certain and it’s that John at least knows how to receive a blow job. Fuck, there’s so much more he wants, but they can only take this in nights at a time.

His hands ride over the swell of John’s arse, kneading. The mouth around his own cock tautens. Moans scatter down the shaft while John comes with his lips latched around him to stifle the pleasured sounds. The steady bob of his head doesn’t flag for even a second. Between his dedication and ravenous mouth, Paul blindly orgasms, in near synchronicity, with limbs twisting on the sheets as if escaping the euphoria. In that moment all of his unspoken words finally spill out of him in something palatable enough to John’s liking.

_ For however long we have, we can at least try, goddammit…. _

The air is dead and alive all at once. Heavy breathing fills the uncertain gaps.

Sloppily, John tries to clean him with laps of his tongue until his knees get the best of him. He staggers and sinks against Paul’s body. Pivoting his head, he smears kisses to the inside of his trembling thigh. Blood roars dully in his temples like heartbeats beneath floorboards.

Paul almost thanks him. But he doesn’t know how to do so without confessing to the lonely life of a widower.

Eventually, John crawls to the top of the bed to lie beside him. In silence Paul observes him getting comfortable, almost amused by the temporariness of it. This is fleeting and they both know it.

“I thought about sendin’ him to his cousins’ for a day or two,” he says anyway, because at least it’s fun to pretend.

"James?"

“Mhm.”

"So you'd be here alone?"

That look—pitying or hopeful, Paul can’t tell; maybe it’s better that way. The self-loathing is already too much to stomach. “Well, that’s up to you.”

“Let me sleep on it,” John decides, and the crescent of a cheeky smirk presses like moonshine on his skin as he rests against his chest. The urge to bury his nose in those greasy auburn curls is almost irresistible. Almost.

“You can do that in the other room.”

“But your bed’s so much nicer,” he pouts into Paul’s chest. “James kicks in his sleep.”

“Alright,” he sighs, “you can stay. Just for a bit, though.”

He’s already giving in to this.

* * *

The sun rises on  _ a bit  _ and brings with it the harsh morning light of realization. 

When Paul hears that first rap at his bedroom door, his heart knocks back. His eyes shoot open. 

“Why’s the door locked?” The curious voice of his son bolts him upright in bed…right next to his son’s best mate.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he curses under his breath, and roots for his trousers lost in the sheets. “Just a mo’, son!” His efforts to rouse John are met with irritable grumbles, until he hisses sternly in his ear, “Get up, it’s James.”

His head rises from the pillow in a mess of disheveled hair and blurred vision. Were their circumstances not so dire, Paul may have laughed at his puzzled awakening. But as it stands, the locked door is still the only thing separating them from his son and this incriminating moment.

“Anyroad, I think John’s gone home. Just wanted to know if—” The door swings open on him. James stands on the opposite side of it with an expression as rumpled as his pyjamas. “John… there you are.”

A perpetual surprise colors his voice every time he finds John in their home…with him. It’s starting to whittle at Paul’s composure. 

“Yeah, needed the Brylcreem,” he defends casually with the product in hand. Paul hadn’t even seen him grab it from the dresser during his haste to dress. He isn’t thrilled with how effortlessly they’re making liars of themselves. “We still writin’ some stuff today or what?”

John lightly backhands his friend’s chest as he saunters past him on the landing and down the stairs. From the open door James eyes Paul dubiously. Feigning ignorance, he continues to make the bed with autonomic movements. In those eternal seconds of his son watching him, he can only hope to God they left nothing out of sorts in the room. 

“Mornin’, Da’,” James offers evenly.

A smile crimps his lips, heart tripping. “Good morning, son.”

At that he finally joins John downstairs, and Paul abandons the pillow in his hands as he bodily slumps onto the edge of the bed. Hands braced on his knees, he exhales forcefully. The tightness in his chest verges on unbearable. Not even a week has passed and he already wonders how long they can keep this up. 

For the first time in years, he overturns his framed wedding picture on the bedside table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading and commenting <3
> 
> requests can still be sent to [my tumblr](https://unchaineddaisychain.tumblr.com)


	10. Lip Service

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon: since you do it so well... another story where paul rims john? with john maybe or maybe not wearing his buddy holly specs?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines Day, you horndogs! ♡
> 
> just a little treat for y'all ;)

They have always been an insecurity of John’s. He would rather strain his eyes over the small print on a page than be caught dead in those thickly framed glasses. Time and again, Paul has called him out on the absurdity. What is so humiliating about trying to see?

“They make me eyes look funny,” John had once claimed.

But Paul maintains how handsome and hip they are on him. To this day, he can recall the pit in his stomach when John first dared to shove them up the bridge of his nose in front of him. A threatening squint had pierced through the bulky lenses like a crack in the glass. All Paul had seen, however, was the magnification of his eyes—almond butter in the sun and more intense than he had ever felt as they stared back at him.

It’s an attraction that has yet to wane over the years.

And one merely augmented by laidback sessions in the studio such as this one. In jeans and a smart jumper topping his collared shirt, John looks like any student fresh from Greenwich Village. A Beatnik reciting prose with a breath deadened by society. His Gibson is a permanent fixture against his chest, the dark ombré stain in stark contrast to his pale forearms resting on the body. Those distinguishable specs—now worn with an air of comfortability—merely tie the whole look together.

Sharing a microphone has never been so torturous.

The release of their first LP couldn’t have come soon enough, because Paul feels more than useless today. His concentration chokes with every bulge of the thick vein in John’s neck as he strains for high notes. The lacklustre performances must be palpable in the studio, given Martin’s early dismissal of them for a break. The perspiration beading around Paul’s collar finally subsides at the news. His heavy sigh of relief is the most musical note he has conjured all day. It doesn’t go unnoticed by John.

“You alright?” he asks.

Paul nods stiffly. “Just feelin’ a bit off today.”

“I can tell. We good an’ well shattered ourselves the other night.”

In fact, John’s voice still has yet to fully recover from the grueling demands of “Twist and Shout.” Bloody hell, the man blew the roof off the place with his gritty take. Paul had never experienced such a visceral reaction to a one-and-done recording before. All of these new self-discoveries have been stacking up at a startling rate. 

“How d’ye fancy a distraction then?” John goes on, voice dark brown. “Seems like you could use a little relaxin’.”

Paul licks his lips, gauges the risk. He’s already suffered one too many sessions within these close proximities of John. Of his rick timbre and dapper outfits and alluring determination. He could think of one or two ways to damage that voice again…and those specs.

Like a pair of schoolboys, they steal away to a vacant office in the EMI studios. Arms encircle waists with the elation of getting away with something in the dark room. “I been waitin’ for a chance to finally celebrate with you,” John says, fingers untucking Paul’s shirt from his trousers to chill the base of his spine. “Properly.” 

“Yeah,” he whispers on a hitched breath. 

As he leans in for a kiss, the corner of John’s glasses bumps Paul’s nose. “Sorry,” he laughs, almost shyly.

Paul smiles, reassuring him, but stills John’s hand when he goes to remove them. “Wait…keep ‘em on.”

“They get in the way.”

“S’alright. I think…well, I rather like ‘em on you.”

He eyes him warily. “You _are_ ill today, eh?”

“Shurrup,” he chuckles fondly before pulling him into a successful kiss.

With their mouths occupied, John poses no further objections. The lenses fog between the heat of their breath, but they don’t need sight for the intimate memory of each other’s bodies. They stumble more fully into the room. Paul’s bum nudges the edge of the desk centered in the middle of it. Given more privacy and time, they would have already stripped themselves naked. Over the years, however, they’ve been forced to master the art of the quickie.

He tugs on John’s lip, coaxing from him those fractured moans that run straight to his cock. Over his trousers, John gropes his half-hard cock. He pants against his mouth, a devilish tongue catching the heat of his breath as it flicks over his top lip. After a hasty fumble with Paul’s belt, he encloses a hand around him. The desperation dribbles from their fingertips like ink from a pen. He sucks hard at John’s tongue to quiet himself as he strokes him to full hardness. 

By the time John is dropping to his knees before him, Paul’s fingers have curled around the desk. Their nails carve half-moons of anticipation into the wood. 

A sinner on the kneeling bench of a confessional, he glances up through the lenses slowly clearing from condensation. Rosiness tinges his cheek bones. The darkness of the room only blackens his gaze further. 

Paul sinks his teeth into his already bitten lip. “You look…fuck.”

Simpering, he brushes his heated cheek against the head of his cock. “Do yer worst, baby.”

Taking himself in hand, he guides himself between John’s pliant, awaiting lips. His eyes flutter shut, tongue instantly nestling itself to the underside of his velvet skin. This is the first time John has ever blown him with his glasses on. Admittedly, it shouldn’t be a thing to notice when lust buzzes so uproariously in his ears. But it turns him on even more, seeing John expose himself in spite of this vulnerability and knowing, for once, the man can see every sentiment mirrored. 

“Brilliant idea, love,” he coos, and feels the bulge of his own cock when he strokes John’s cheek.

For the ease with which he swallows his length, Paul wonders if the other day’s sessions didn’t numb his throat entirely. He rummages a hand, deep and clawing, into his auburn locks. The seal-tight suction around his flesh seems to fish out his very soul. John moans as Paul thrusts his hips like he intends to etch his name on the back of John’s throat. His glasses wobble precariously on the proud bridge of his nose. At the sight of it—the wreckage of intellect—Paul feels himself teetering much the same.

With another fistful of hair, he yanks John off him and spills his load across his face and glasses instead. Trace spurts land in his gaping mouth, as he kneels there like an obscene abstract. In the aureate haze of ecstasy, he can’t even feel bad for it. 

“Fuckin’ Christ,” John gasps. “Where’d that come from?”

Knees weak, Paul supports himself more fully against the desk. Chuckling, he murmurs, “Couldn’t help meself. You had some precautions this time anyroad.”

At the mention of his streaked specs, John goes to slide them off again. Paul hums in disapproval. “Leave ‘em,” he commands throatily.

“I can’t fuckin’ see through ‘em now.”

“You don’t need to.” 

Helping him to his feet with an outstretched hand, Paul draws him into another kiss. He anticipates the salty taste of himself on John’s tongue but never finds it. His cock twitches at the realization that it landed practically everywhere else. With a moan he licks the droplets clung to the corners of his mouth.

Eager to repay the favor, he reverses their positions against the desk. John laughs, breathless, at the rush, mumbling, “Yer in rare form today.”

Sidled close behind him, he unfastens John’s belt with his softened cock cradled against the swell of his arse. His nose nuzzles his red-tipped ear. “So’re you,” he answers, but neglects to say in which ways.

After hauling John’s trousers down his legs, Paul drops to his knees with a few sins of his own. From the firm muscle he kneads in his hands, he can feel the tension bodily escaping John everywhere else, as well. A silent curse bleeds past the man’s lips. His trouser-bound ankles spread in as much offerance as possible. But Paul takes it upon himself to open him fully to the glossy slide of his tongue.

“Paul,” John whines at first contact. His head pivots in a futile attempt at a peek, but Paul only glimpses black frames decorated with garlands of white. 

He smirks, nips at the fleshy cheek. It manipulates into the insistence of his hands, smooth against his calloused palms. Splayed wide, they keep him open as Paul’s tongue draws clever circles around John’s puckered rim. His eyes slip shut at the religious experience of it all. Fucking hell, he can’t afford to grow hard again; they’ll never leave this damn room.

He breaches the entrance with a stiff prod of his tongue. The thumb of his left hand creeps in alongside it, heightening the sense of fullness. Stuttered breaths cascade over him like tropical rainfall. The heat radiates from every pore of John’s body and his own, until they blur into one throbbing muscle. John’s back arches into the artistry of his mouth as it establishes rhythm. Firm and swift and slick. 

“Mm, that’s it, love, that’s—”

“Touch yourself for me, Johnny,” he orders huskily.

In eager obedience, one of the hands supporting him on the desk abandons it in favor of stroking himself off. So much slickness of sound floods Paul’s ears, it’s easy to convince himself he’s liquefying in the midst of it all. His own mouth on John’s tight hole—John’s hand pumping his own cock. He cradles John’s heavy sack in his hand, massaging rhythmically. The finesse of it all falls sloppy and eager and better for it. Drunk on the musk of John’s skin, he claws into it as though it were the wood of the desk.

“Oh fuck— _baby!”_

He comes, hotly and blindly, onto the polished cedar stain. Head sagging between his shoulders, he drops to his elbows to catch his breath. Paul sits back on his haunches with the saliva cooling around his satiated grin. His blunt fingernails snick over the jumping muscles of John’s thighs like delayed shocks. After smearing kisses across John’s arse and dimples of his lower back, Paul generously fixes the trousers back around his hips.

On his feet, he embraces John from behind. A hand smoothes over his stomach as he nuzzles his nape. Sighing, John turns in his arms and offers his lips. The come has since dried on his glasses. When he takes them off this time, Paul doesn’t stop him. 

“They’re bloody ruined now.”

“I knew it was the only way I’d ever get you to clean ‘em,” Paul quips.

He scrunches his nose, petulant. “Just for that I ought to leave ‘em this way.”

“An’ that’ll be your explainin’ to do, it will.”

Eyes steadfast on Paul’s, John gives them a long, wet lick. Stomach somersaulting, Paul takes them from his hands and cleans the lenses with the tail of his shirt. Carefully, he places them back on the bridge of his nose. A wispy smile claims his mouth at the way he has grown into the familiarity of them like any old instrument. 

“Good as new.”

“What about the desk?” John asks, and they share a look to his own spunk plastered like a name plate across the front.

Paul shrugs. “Lick it if ye want, but I say we fuck off before anyone susses it.”

He grins. “Glad to see you’ve got yer wits back now, love.”

They share another lazy kiss before making themselves further presentable. Back in the studio, however, they find no other presence around to even question their own. With the hours nearing the end of the night, the lights have gone out and the room has emptied.

John peers around the darkness then huffs. “It figures the one day I wear these bloody things, I don’t even need ‘em.”

“Well, I think they’ve been dead handy,” Paul contends with a curl of his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requests can be sent to [my tumblr](https://unchaineddaisychain.tumblr.com)
> 
> phones are busy, so I appreciate your patience


	11. The Love of Ares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon 1: Absolutely requesting a John spanking Paul smutlet! Hamburg days (stress relief and having to think about noise/privacy!)? At the beach and discovering it hurts more on wet skin, which they either lean into or John towels him off so it’s not as bad? Or honestly anything would be amazing!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (bc they wouldn't both fit in the chapter summary) Anon 2: Okay, now I can’t stop thinking of John just being, idk, extra tenderly aware of Paul for a while after spanking him. I feel like he’d not only be really attuned to the physical part, like knowing Paul’s got his handprints on him, but that he’d also maybe subconsciously keep monitoring him emotionally for a bit. Not because he thought Paul would fall apart, but because he’d find it hard to turn that heightened sense off right away after needing to make sure Paul was okay/it wasn’t too much during the spanking. I think Paul rarely being vulnerable would amp this up even more and John would really relish the chance to look out for him when the opportunity came up. I don’t think he’d be super over the top about it, but I’m picturing him kind of like he was during the interview when Paul was sick and he kept checking in. I don’t know what else this would look like, like maybe getting him tea and cutting a press conference with uncomfortable chairs short, but I can’t get it out of my mind!
> 
> //so my aim here was to combine the two ideas from the first anon, and then also incorporate a bit of that after care from the second anon. massive thank you to both for these ideas - the more detail, the better for me. and I hope y'all enjoy this! (btw I barely edited this one since it's a busy day lol)

The island heat drips over his skin like viscous wax. White sand beneath his feet and between his toes is the only grounding sensation to the scene before him. Splayed prostrate on the beach, Paul basks in the lemon rays of the sun, with his raven hair a stark contrast to the pale skin growing tanner every passing day. Adonis glares upon him with an envy greener than the seaweed crawling up the shoreline. John wagers every ocean-dwelling creature would sacrifice its life to share the same stretch of shore as his lover. In fact, the sight is enough to make he himself feel like a sailor shipwrecked by tides and hallucinations. 

Heart whirlpooling, John approaches him on the secluded beach. At a closer distance, he notices the droplets still clinging to Paul’s skin and snug swim trunks from his dip in the water. His tongue thickens in his mouth with the urge to lick them off. This entire holiday his mind has been flooded with the absurdity of this being their reality. An island all to themselves, utopic and bliss. Living like gods on earth.

His shadow descends over Paul’s drowsy, content face. He squints up at John and a gentle smile tugs across his face at the recognition of his visitor.

“Mind yerself you don’t attract a coupla blind sailors like that,” John teases, arms akimbo and eyes leisure in their stroll over his elongated frame.

Paul snorts, loosely shutting his eyes again. “Nah, I’ve already attracted the one I want.”

The slur of his words has John leaning even more heavily in the siesta of a summer evening. “The girls gone off with Jules?”

“‘Bout fifteen minutes ago, yeah.”

“So you mean it’s just you an’ me an’ the sand in between?”

“Speak for yerself, love, my cheeks are clean.”

John barks a laugh and, enticed by the humidity and playfulness, whips Paul’s perky bum with the towel draped across his shoulders. “Let’s ‘ave a look, then!”

“Oi, I’m relaxin’ here,” Paul chuckles, exposing a sand-sprinkled cheek when he lifts his head.

John straddles the backs of his thighs, settles his hands over the dimples in his lower back. “Let me help,” he mutters into his salty skin as his head dips for a kiss. “Lotion you up a bit, eh?”

Settling into the offer and beach alike, Paul passes him the bottle. A sigh bleeds from his lips with more heft than the zephyr skipping over their naked backs. With strong, emollient hands, John kneads the cream into his hot skin. Muscles unclench palpably beneath his touch. The rhythm of his touch and squaws of distant gulls lull him into the serenity of it all. In this moment they lie on the sands of time together, broken from the hourglass and spilled around them in a mosaic of surrealty. 

“Had a good time with Jules today, in the water,” Paul says after a long moment.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, he’s a smart lad. Loved seein’ the fish, gatherin’ up all the shells, y’know.”

“Yer good with ‘im. Better than me, even.”

The admission startles even himself, hands stilling momentarily. At least he can hide it here, amongst the caverns of the islands.

“He’s a lot like you,” Paul goes on, “so I’ve learned how t’ handle ‘im.”

John swats his arse in reprimand. “I think yer gettin’ a little too comfortable here.”

Paul squirms almost imperceptibly beneath him, and the grin on John’s face ebbs at the lack of retort. As though the very reefs have cracked in the waters around them, he senses a shift. 

“Alright?” Again, no response, and John smacks him once more, insisting, “Macca?”

Jerkily, he nods his head. “Sorry, yeah—‘m good.” 

His own thoughts capsize against every knob in Paul’s spine as he follows their lineage to the curve of his arse. “How good?” he probes, but reads it in the gnawing of his lip—feasting upon his own mouth like even the taste of those impending words are a delicacy. 

“John,” he warns.

He knows he has to tread these waters carefully. Amongst these Greek ones so pristine and transparent, the ones between him and Paul can run murky and deep. The connotations of such a trip bordering on permanency in John’s mind have been daunting enough. It can take so little to scare Paul off; John fears more than anything scaring him off.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, love,” he soothes with hands still roaming like an incentive. “Did you like that?”

“I’ve never,” but he cuts himself off, stranded between the want and the wariness.

“I know,” he murmurs against his nape, turned on at exploration even in the vocal sense. He noses along the sea-breeze scent of Paul’s skin, intoxicated by the liberation sleeping there. “I could help you find out if you do, though. We don’t have to do anything you don’t like.”

Cock twitching at his own words, he leans into a risk. Plenty of times before Paul’s silence has relied on John’s initiative to guide them into uncharted territories. In the tempted arch of his body, he feels their push-and-pull once more. He kisses the valley between Paul’s shoulder blades to blend the lines of familiar and novel when his palm lands with a third light blow. 

Paul’s breath hitches, absorbing the shock to his senses. “Fuck,” he hisses.

His legs writhe reflexively against the shore; an escape or an approval, John can’t be sure.

“How ‘bout it?” he checks. “Too much?”

“Yeah, the trunks, they’re too wet.”

Swallowing a lump in his throat, John tugs the damp, red bathing suit over his bum. Tinges of pink mottle his skin, overlays of color. He wets his lips and edges his thumbs over the marks in a soothing gesture. A crease pinches Paul’s brow and he yearns to reach out to smooth that over, as well. But John knows the restless confusion in backpedalling on the pleasure.

Rubbing his fingers against his palm, the friction leather-like, he strikes again. Paul whimpers, mouth parting and posing no questions to the receptiveness this time.

“Better?” John says anyway, positively aroused at seeing him this way. “Want me to keep goin’?”

He nods, cheeks visibly heated. “Yeah, that’s…yeah, s’good.”

With the same technique and force, John spanks him again.  _ Fuckin’ hell, where did this come from, _ he thinks to himself, too fearful to voice it and risk Paul overthinking in true paranoid fashion. Rather, he lets his lover’s body do the answering for him—hinting that this slumbering beast has been a long time coming. 

“Harder now,” Paul moans after several hits with the same calculated intensity. 

John’s hand stalls mid-swing. “Paul—”

“I can take it, please.”

Jesus, the desperation in his voice is impossible to resist.

Back on his haunches, he pulls Paul by the hips from the sand. His heavy hand and weightless heart make their blows in simultaneity. Each ensuing swat gathers the speed of the salty wind and his lover groans, fingers balling the sand into his fist. 

Despite their seclusion, Paul continues to muffle his cries. Teeth latched into his forearm, his eyes squeeze tightly like two lemon wedges. Always withholding, from himself and John. But Christ, John wants to  _ hear _ him. Years they have spent in matchbox bedrooms and beneath the noses of the press with their love muted from the music it can make.

“Don’t hold back on me, baby,” he encourages over another ricocheting sting. “S’just us, nobody’s gonna hear you here.”

“God, John,” he whines, as though so overwhelmed by the pleasure his body knows not what to do with it. “C’mon,  _ more.” _

By the seconds, the color has hued darker and angrier, scarlet streaking his arse like licorice. His left hand fumbles clumsily from the sand and reaches for his leaking cock. From his sacrum, John can practically feel the tightening of his grip in synchronicity with the contact of their flesh. A double-edged sword of euphoria, the burning sensation even bleeds back into his own palm. Downing the pain as much as he doses it.

Through his trunks, he palms his own erection at the power and reaction to its usage. The  _ give me more, give me more _ etched across Paul’s sun-kissed face. “You take it so well, love,” he coos throatily. “But there’s nothin’ to prove, y’know.”

“‘M not.” His head shakes arrhythmically, dancing with incoherence. “I want— _ mm, fuck yes— _ I want it, I do.”

Talking himself into it, allowing himself to freefall, Paul crumbles apart beneath it all. One knee sinks further into the sand, forearm taking the brunt of his climax as he comes into his own fist and the beach, crying out, “John, oh Christ!”

Drained, his body folds into the earth. Gelatine limbs squirm beneath John as slugs of pleasure continue to ratchet through his veins. Groaning at the mere sight, John pulls his prick from his own trunks and spits into his palm. He pumps himself manically, eyes rolling in their sockets. He can taste it—the salt and the sweat and the steps progressed today. All at once, his climax washes over him like an undercurrent, three firm strokes all it takes before he spills across Paul’s marked flesh. Tattooed even further. Toes curling like crabs into the seaside, he moans into the open air; freedom reverberates off the nearby dunes and cliffs.

The silence that follows is deafening. He collapses, supine, next to Paul and comes alive beneath the sun beating against his face. Once the rush of blood subsides in his ears, he notices the hushed moans next to him. They fragment out of his lover like aftershocks, to which John can’t resist a smile. 

Propping onto his elbow, he leers at Paul’s handprint- and spunk-streaked backside. “Reckon I oughta rub that in, too?” he teases.

Budging nary an inch, he mumbles, “Fuckin’ towel me off, you can.”

Grinning salaciously, John does as bid of him. With a touch rejuvenated by tenderness, he takes his time to carefully clean Paul’s body. The reverence soothes his own soul after an interaction so emotionally charged. But he keeps those thoughts distant, barricaded by the dopamine. Right now, he can’t consider the ways he touched his lover unlike he ever has before.

Instead, he brushes the granules of sand from Paul’s disheveled hair. Tossing the filthy towel aside, he drapes himself over his back again, mindful not to aggravate his sensitive flesh. A quietude once peaceful now verges on unsettling. Suddenly, John fears they have gone too far—swam in waters too deep. Stomach beginning to knot, he ventures, “Paul?” 

After a beat as long as the one with which they started, he answers, “Just need a bit, s’all.” 

It isn’t enough, but it’s something. For now, at least. John would probably be willing to give him a bit or an eternity, whichever he needed.

He rests one hand in the sand and the other on the spur of Paul’s hip. The visuals trickle back into his frontal lobes—alabaster complexion kissed by something wholly his own. He holds steadfast to the cables that want to spiral him into the possessiveness of it all. It feels like a fall with no safe landing. He has him here now and that’s all that matters.

With a sigh, John positions his head more comfortably between Paul’s shoulder blades. With half-lidded eyes, he glances at his palm…red and throbbing like the love of Ares.

* * *

The ambivalence of what they’ve done only weighs upon him some time later. Everyone gathers at a large table for dinner and John clocks the grimace on Paul’s face as soon as he sits across from him. In that instant it dawns on him the pain that still succeeds the pleasure. Beneath the table he reassuringly nestles his foot alongside Paul’s, stroking back and forth. The contact has him glancing up and he smiles lightly.

Without a chance for a proper chat, it still doesn’t settle well with John. It threatens to ruin his appetite, even. He can’t help but to wonder, though, why someone like Paul would have such a deep yen for the submission. Someone so collected and fastidious and business savvy. And yet the realization clinks into his mind as solidly as the clatter of silverware around him: he has too much of it. Too much of the control and expectations to keep it at every passing moment of everyday. If John can take that from him, even for a few fleeting moments, he wants to do what he can.

In fact, he finds that the catering to Paul’s needs doesn’t stop after the contact of flesh. Over the course of their meal, he offers to make any trip for a refill he needs just to save him the hassle of upsetting his marks. He makes an effort not to draw attention to it or create a fuss. The grateful gleam in Paul’s eyes tells him it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

After their meal, he finds him smoking a joint alone on the starboard bow of their boat. With dawn closing in over the horizon, the plumes drift like gulls’ wings into the sticky air. John’s knees nearly buckle at the restored serenity.

Silently, he enfolds the blanket wrapped around his own shoulders over Paul’s chilly ones. Sidling close behind him, he plants his hands over his stomach and feels the muscles quiver. 

Paul glances with hesitance over their shoulders. “John, love—”

“It’s okay,” he whispers, kissing his neck. “Gone for an evening dip, all of ‘em.”

He physically relaxes into his arms again. “Thought you had to wait an hour.”

“Only if it’s kosher,” he quips dryly.

Paul hums. Tilting his head, he brings his spliff to John’s lips for a toke. Before he can turn his head to the open waters again, John leads him in with a hand on his cheek and breathes the smoke into his mouth. With another, more lust-heavy hum, Paul parts his lips for the lazy snog. He tastes of the champagne and chocolate pudding, a hint of something heady in the pot. 

Despite the perfection that rests in his palms, John still finds himself whispering, “It was too much, wasn’t it?”

Paul’s eyes flutter open, tongue swiping along his lip. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want. Or like.”

“Yeah,” he concedes, but with a scent of uncertainty. “I don’t want to hurt you. You know that.”

“‘M not made of porcelain, Johnny.” 

“Aye, but you look it.”

His smile presses against the thumb circling his cheek. Catching it with a kiss, Paul continues, “It’s new to both of us. But I…I wanna do that, learn these new sides of myself with you.”

John’s chest clenches at those words—a blow so light it’s truly brutal. He nods, stifles the emotions. “I just wanna make sure yer okay.”

“I’m fine.”

With that, he smiles and offers his plush mouth again for a deep kiss. The heat burgeoning between them seems to radiate from the very prints of passion bestowed earlier. Something in it is a feeling John never wishes to lose, and he holds Paul closer yet as the last brush strokes of crimson and bronze drip below the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave thoughts, I love to read them!
> 
> I've loved the influx of smutlet requests lately, but I just ask for y'all's patience bc I'm getting a lot and I want them to be good, so it takes time to get to everyone. but I appreciate all of you greatly <33

**Author's Note:**

> if you have requests, feel free to send them to me on [tumblr](https://unchaineddaisychain.tumblr.com)


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